Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Evolution

How do microbes grow in nature? The role of population dynamics in microbial ecology and evolution

Justus Wilhelm Fink, Michael Manhart

Published: 2023-02-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Systems Biology

The growth of microbial populations in nature is dynamic, as the cellular physiology and environment of these populations change. Understanding the growth dynamics of these populations has wide-ranging consequences for their ecology and evolution; it may also be critical for clinical and environmental applications in which we need to promote or inhibit microbial growth. Here we review the [...]

Extra-pair paternity, breeding density and synchrony in natural cavities versus nestboxes in two passerine birds

Irene Di Lecce, Charles Perrier, Marta Szulkin, et al.

Published: 2023-02-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology

Most of what is known about extra-pair paternity in hole-nesting birds derives from studies using artificial nesting sites, such as nestboxes. However, it has rarely been investigated whether inference drawn from breeding events taking place in nestboxes matches what would be observed under natural conditions, i.e. in natural cavities. We here report on a variation in promiscuity in blue tits and [...]

Prestige bias in cultural evolutionary dynamics

Saar Egozi, Yoav Ram

Published: 2023-02-16
Subjects: Evolution, Life Sciences, Social and Cultural Anthropology

A common bias in cultural transmission is success bias, where more successful individuals are more likely to be copied. Because success may be difficult to estimate, individuals may indirectly estimate success by using prestige as a proxy for success. Here, we model prestige bias as a combination of indirect success bias and influence bias, the latter meaning that the choice of a role-model [...]

Heritability and age-dependent changes in genetic variation of telomere length in a wild house sparrow population

Heung Ying Janet Chik, Aaron Sibma, Maria-Elena Mannarelli, et al.

Published: 2023-02-13
Subjects: Evolution

Telomeres are a popular biomarker of senescence, as telomere dynamics are linked with survival and lifespan. However, the evolutionary potential of telomere dynamics, and the selection pattern that gives rise to senescence, are not well known. To better understand this, it is necessary to quantify genetic variation in telomere length, and how such variation changes with age. Here, we analysed a [...]

Keep your cool: Overwintering physiology in response to urbanization in the acorn ant, Temnothorax curvispinosus

Eric Grant Prileson, Jordan Clark, Sarah E Diamond, et al.

Published: 2023-02-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences

Winter presents an immense challenge for survival, yet temperate ectotherms have remarkable adaptations to physiologically compensate for these challenges. Such mechanisms are especially relevant under recent climate change where responses to warmer winters might negatively affect populations. While there is growing evidence of thermal physiological adaptations and population divergence in [...]

Evolutionary walks through flower color space driven by gene expression in Petunia and allies (Petunieae)

Lucas C Wheeler, Amy Dunbar-Wallis, Kyle Schutz, et al.

Published: 2023-02-03
Subjects: Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences

The structure and function of biochemical and developmental pathways determine the range of accessible phenotypes, which are the substrate for evolutionary change. Accordingly, we expect that observed phenotypic variation across species is strongly influenced by pathway structure, with different phenotypes arising due to changes in activity along pathway branches. Here we use flower color as a [...]

Developmental environments do not affect thermal physiology in reptiles: An experimental test and meta-analysis

Rose Zhang, Kris Wild, Patrice Pottier, et al.

Published: 2023-01-18
Subjects: Evolution, Integrative Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

On a global scale, organisms face significant challenges due to climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. In many ectotherms, developmental and physiological processes are sensitive to changes in temperature and resources. Developmental plasticity in thermal physiology may provide adaptive advantages to environmental extremes if early environmental conditions are predictable of late-life [...]

How do monomorphic bacteria evolve? The *Mycobacterium tuberculosis* complex and the awkward population genetics of extreme clonality

Sebastien Gagneux, Christoph Stritt

Published: 2022-12-15
Subjects: Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics, Pathogenic Microbiology, Population Biology

Exchange of genetic material through sexual reproduction or horizontal gene transfer is ubiquitous in nature. Among the few outliers that rarely recombine and mainly evolve by *de novo* mutation are a group of deadly bacterial pathogens, including the causative agents of leprosy, plague, typhoid, and tuberculosis. The interplay of evolutionary processes is poorly understood in these organisms. [...]

Advances in the reconstruction of the Spider Tree of Life: a roadmap for spider systematics and comparative studies

Siddharth Kulkarni, Hannah Wood, Gustavo Hormiga

Published: 2022-12-14
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Genomics, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

In the last decade and a half, advances in genetic sequencing technologies have revolutionized systematics, transforming the field as studying morphological characters; a few genetic markers have given way to genomic data sets in the phylogenomic era. A plethora of molecular phylogenetic studies on many taxonomic groups have come about, converging on, or refuting prevailing morphology or [...]

Preference for conspecific mates in sympatric and allopatric darters (genus Etheostoma): comparative evidence for geographical and sex effects

Yseult Héjja-Brichard, Julien P Renoult, Tamra C Mendelson

Published: 2022-12-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution

A preference for mating with conspecifics over heterospecifics is fundamental to the maintenance of species diversity in sexually reproducing organisms. This type of assortative mating is often stronger between closely related sympatric species as compared to allopatric species, resulting from processes such as reinforcement or differential fusion. In animals, this pattern has been demonstrated [...]

Alternative reading frames are an underappreciated source of protein sequence novelty

Zachary Ardern

Published: 2022-12-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences

Alternative reading frames of protein coding genes are a major contributor to the evolution of novel protein products. Recent studies demonstrating this include examples across the three domains of cellular life and in viruses. Alternative frame sequences both increase the number of trials available for the evolutionary invention of new genes and have unusual properties which may facilitate gene [...]

A tale of two genomes: What drives mitonuclear discordance in asexual lineages of a freshwater snail?

Maurine Neiman, Joel Sharbrough

Published: 2022-11-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences

We use genomic information to tell us stories of evolutionary origins. But what does it mean when different genomes report wildly different accounts of lineage history? This “discordance” can be a consequence of a fascinating suite of natural history and evolutionary phenomena, from the different inheritance mechanisms of nuclear vs. cytoplasmic genomes to hybridization and introgression to [...]

Misrepresenting biases in arrival: a comment on Svensson (2022)

Alejandro Cano, Alejandro Couce, Joanna Masel, et al.

Published: 2022-11-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences

The idea that adaptive change is subject to biases in variation by a "first come, first served" dynamic is not part of classic evolutionary reasoning. Yet, predictable effects of biases in the introduction of variation have been reported in models of population genetics, in laboratory evolution, and in retrospective analyses of natural adaptation. This effect of "arrival bias" has potentially [...]

Evolutionary origins of the Mesoamerican-eastern United States floristic disjunction: current status and future prospects

Gregory W Stull

Published: 2022-11-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences

Biogeographic disjunction patterns, where multiple taxonomic groups are shared between isolated geographic areas, represent excellent systems for investigating the historical assembly of modern biotas as well as fundamental biological processes such as speciation, diversification, niche evolution, and evolutionary responses to climate change. Studies on plant genera disjunct across the Northern [...]

Incompatibility and interchangeability in molecular evolution

Daniel B Sloan, Jessica M Warren, Alissa M Williams, et al.

Published: 2022-11-02
Subjects: Evolution, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics

There is remarkable variation in the rate at which genetic incompatibilities in molecular interactions accumulate. In some cases, minor changes – even single nucleotide substitutions – create major epistatic incompatibilities when hybridization forces new variants to function in a novel genetic background from an isolated population. In other cases, genes or even entire functional pathways can be [...]

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