Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biology
The collector practices that shape spatial, temporal, and taxonomic bias in herbaria
Published: 2025-02-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Natural history collections (NHCs) are essential for studying biodiversity. Although spatial, temporal, and taxonomic biases in NHCs affect analyses, the influence of collector practices on biases remains largely unexplored. We utilized one million digitized specimens collected in the northeastern United States from 237 herbaria and analyzed contributions from ~10,000 collectors. We investigated [...]
Bats in Habitats, Bats as Habitats: An integrative ecological framework for understanding synergistic interactions across levels of community organization
Published: 2025-02-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Systems Biology
Global biodiversity and ecosystem function are the result of complex networks of interactions and feedbacks between animals and their environments, which in turn are affected by the interactions and feedbacks between animals and the organisms they host. Understanding these complex networks, including the main drivers of and responses to ecological and environmental changes and their global [...]
Attentional Control and Vertebrate Cognitive Evolution
Published: 2025-01-29
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Neuroscience and Neurobiology
How might brain functioning differ between endotherm and ectotherm vertebrates? Recent results suggest that ectotherms lack proper working memory, which could reflect a lack of attentional control. Ectotherms may nevertheless excel in cognitive tasks if their ecological needs and learning opportunities compensate for their lower computing power.
Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals: Techniques, Challenges, and Prospects
Published: 2025-01-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Heavy metals, characterized by their high atomic mass and density, can pose significant risks to soil, water, plants, and human health. Contamination sources include manufacturing activities, mining, farming practices, and improper waste management. Metals such as arsenic, mercury, lead, chromium, and cadmium are most toxic with health consequences that can result from organ dysfunction to [...]
The Development and Evolution of Arthropod Tagmata
Published: 2024-12-10
Subjects: Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Developmental Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
The segmented body plan is a hallmark of the arthropod body plan. Morphological segments are formed during embryogenesis, through a complex procedure involving the activation of a series of gene regulatory networks. The segments of the arthropod body are organized into functional units known as tagmata, and these tagmata are different among the arthropod classes (e.g. head, thorax and abdomen in [...]
Enhancing Canopy Research in Africa: Insights from Tree Climbing Workshop in Ghana
Published: 2024-11-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology
The report shares the background and experience executing a tree climbing workshop in Ghana. In most cases, canopy research in Africa is conducted under the umbrella of parachute science, leaving local scientists deprived of canopy access skills and equipment. Consequently, tropical Africa experiences a closed canopy so far as canopy ecology is concerned. In May 2024, ten (10) early career [...]
The evolutionary conflict theory of aging
Published: 2024-11-21
Subjects: Biology, Evolution
Why we age is an enduring mystery. This manuscript proposes aging is microevolutionarily opposed, but macroevolutionarily favored. Such a conflict between microevolution and macroevolution is highly unusual since traits that are harmful to the organism are usually harmful to the survival of the species. In the case of aging, however, a shorter lifespan makes a species better able to adapt to a [...]
Advancing the spatiotemporal dimension of wildlife–pollution interactions
Published: 2024-11-14
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Health Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Toxicology, Zoology
Chemical pollution is a pervasive problem and is now considered the fastest-growing agent of global environmental change. Numerous pollutants are known to disrupt animal behaviour, alter ecological interactions, and shift evolutionary trajectories. Crucially, both chemical pollutants and individual organisms are non-randomly distributed throughout the environment. Despite this, the current [...]
Pollinator ethanology: A comment on Bowland et al.
Published: 2024-11-13
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Nutrition, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Toxicology, Zoology
Earlier and increased growth of tundra willows after a decade of growth in a warmer common garden environment
Published: 2024-11-08
Subjects: Biology, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. The expansion of woody shrubs, known as shrubification, is one of the most widely observed patterns of vegetation change in the tundra. Yet, we do not know the relative importance of plant plasticity and genetic change in determining shrub responses to warming. Plastic responses to the environment can be rapid, while genetic differentiation is much slower. 2. We established a common garden [...]
Niche dynamics of alien plant species in Mediterranean Europe
Published: 2024-11-03
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Aim Humans have spread plants globally for millennia, inadvertently causing ecological disruptions. However, biological invasions also provide a unique opportunity to study the process of niche dynamics, through which species adapt their niche when confronted with novel environments. Focusing on the Mediterranean Basin, we assessed 1) which traits favour niche dynamics, and 2) whether niche [...]
BON in a Box: An Open and Collaborative Platform for Biodiversity Monitoring, Indicator Calculation, and Reporting
Published: 2024-10-28
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Plant Sciences
The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Kunming-Montreal Global BiodiversityFramework (GBF) sets ambitious goals to protect and restore biodiversity. It includes a Monitoring Framework that mandates countries to track progress toward these goals using indicators that summarize biodiversity trends. Calculating indicators is challenging for countries due to technical barriers, lack of available [...]
Should I stay or should I go: Transmission trade-offs in mobile genetic elements
Published: 2024-10-17
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Mobile genetic elements (MGEs), including temperate bacteriophages and conjugative plasmids, are major vectors of virulence and antibiotic resistance in bacterial populations. To maximize reproductive fitness, MGEs have to optimize horizontal and vertical transmission. Yet, the cost of horizontal transmission (e.g. phage lysis) puts these transmission modes at odds. Using virulence-transmission [...]
How can we make conferences more inclusive? Lessons from the International Ethological Congress
Published: 2024-09-24
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Despite growing awareness of the importance of researcher diversity, barriers to inclusion and equity persist in science and at academic conferences. As hosts of the 37th International Ethological Congress, “Behaviour 2023”, we studied equity, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) issues using observational and experimental behavioural data collected during question and answer (Q&A) sessions in [...]
Wild vs. domestic ungulate ecosystem impacts: understanding functional differences requires greater focus on mechanisms
Published: 2024-09-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Ungulates play vital roles in ecological systems, shaping plant biomass and diversity via herbivory and impacting soil properties through trampling and nutrient deposition. As ungulate communities fluctuate across the globe, the extent to which wild ungulates and domestic livestock can play similar ecological roles is an increasingly vital - and fraught - question. Here, we synthesized the [...]