Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Evolution
The evolution of conspicuousness in frogs: when to signal toxicity?
Published: 2022-04-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Many organisms use conspicuous color patterns to advertise their toxicity or unpalatability, a strategy known as aposematism. Despite the recognized benefits of this anti-predator tactic, not all chemically defended species exhibit warning coloration. Here, we use a comparative approach to investigate which factors predict the evolution of conspicuousness in frogs, a group in which conspicuous [...]
Reducing the biases in false correlations between discrete characters
Published: 2022-04-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The correlation between two characters is often interpreted as evidence that there exists a significant and biologically important relationship between them. However, Maddison and FitzJohn (2015) recently pointed out that in certain situations find evidence of correlated evolution between two categorical characters is often spurious, particularly, when the dependent relationship stems from a [...]
Biofilm formation is intrinsic to the origin of life
Published: 2022-03-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Biofilm formation the build up of multicellular, often surface-associated, communities of autonomous cells, is the natural mode of growth of up to 80% of microorganisms living on this planet. Their tolerance against multiple environmental stresses makes biofilms refractory towards antimicrobial treatment strategies and the actions of the immune system. But how did biofilm formation arise? Here, I [...]
Defence mitigation by predators of chemically defended prey integrated over the predation cycle and across biological levels
Published: 2022-03-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The long-term evolution of species involved in predator-prey interactions has resulted in many examples of specialised prey defences. The methods that predators use to mitigate prey defences has received less attention. The frequent reference to an arms races or coevolution without clear evidence that both strategies evolved under the influence of each other is problematic. In this review, we use [...]
Endosymbiosis or Bust: Influence of Ectosymbiosis on Evolution of Obligate Endosymbiosis
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Endosymbiosis, symbiosis in which one symbiont lives inside another, is woven throughout the history of life and the story of its evolution. From the mitochondrion residing in almost every eukaryotic cell to the gut microbiome found in every human, endosymbiosis is a cornerstone of the biological processes that sustain life on Earth. While endosymbiosis is ubiquitous, many questions about its [...]
Keep Your Frenemies Closer: Bacteriophage That Benefit Their Hosts Evolve to be More Temperate
Published: 2022-03-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Bacteriophages, also known as phages, are viruses that infect bacteria. They are found everywhere in nature, playing vital roles in microbiomes and bacterial evolution due to the selective pressure that they place on their hosts. As obligate endosymbionts, phages depend on bacteria for successful reproduction, and either destroy their hosts through lysis or are maintained within the host through [...]
Technical comment on Negative-assortative mating for color in wolves
Published: 2022-03-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Hedrick et al. (2016) reported on "negative-assortative mating for color in wolves" from Yellowstone National Park, the "first documented case of significant negative-assortative mating in mammals." Here I report a logical inconsistency in their population genetic model that effectively imposes selection against some assortatively mating genotype. After pointing out this inconsistency, I derive [...]
Dirty Transmission Hypothesis: Increased Mutations During Horizontal Transmission Can Select for Increased Levels of Mutualism in Endosymbionts
Published: 2022-02-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
A mutualistic symbiosis occurs when organisms of different species cooperate closely for a net benefit over time. Mutualistic relationships are important for human health, food production, and ecosystem maintenance. However, they can evolve to parasitism or breakdown all together and the conditions that maintain and influence them are not completely understood. Vertical and horizontal [...]
Survival of the luckiest
Published: 2022-02-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Opposite dynamics are behind natural selection and sexual selection. While the fittest survives in natural selection, the survivor will most likely be the luckiest when both dynamics are combined.
Origins and evolution of biological novelty
Published: 2022-02-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Understanding the origins and impacts of novel traits has been a perennial interest in many realms of ecology and evolutionary biology. Here, we build on previous evolutionary and philosophical treatments of the subject to encompass novelties across biological scales and eco-evolutionary perspectives. By defining novelties as new features at one biological scale that have emergent effects at [...]
How to behave when marooned: the behavioural component of the island syndrome remains underexplored
Published: 2022-01-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Animals on islands typically depart from their mainland relatives in assorted aspects of their biology. Because they seem to occur in concert, and to some extent evolve convergently in disparate taxa, these changes are referred to as the “island syndrome”. While morphological, physiological, and life history components of the island syndrome have received considerable attention, much less is [...]
Intraspecific diversity of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) populations in eastern Canada
Published: 2022-01-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) is a small, mesopredatory fish that is widespread in coastal regions of the northern hemisphere. Although this species does not directly support a commercial or recreational fishery, threespine stickleback often serve as important prey for larger fish that do support important fisheries, as well as many bird species. Although studied extensively [...]
Latitudinal but not elevational variation in blood glucose level is linked to life history across passerine birds
Published: 2022-01-14
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology, Zoology
Macrophysiological research is vital to our understanding of mechanisms underpinning global life history variation and adaptation under diverse environments. Birds represent an important model taxon in this regard, yet our knowledge is limited to only a few physiological traits, mostly studied in temperate and Neotropical species. Here, we examined latitudinal and elevational variation in an [...]
Form, Function, Agency: Sources of Natural Purpose in Animal Evolution
Published: 2022-01-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The origination and evolution of multicellular form and function is generally thought to be based on gene-based variation, with natural selection changing the populational composition in the respective variants over time. The criterion for evolutionary success is differential fitness, the relative capacity to leave progeny in the next generation. Theoretical considerations show that this model [...]
Ecogeography of group size suggests differences in drivers of sociality among cooperatively breeding fairywrens
Published: 2022-01-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Cooperatively breeding species exhibit a range of social behaviors associated with different costs and benefits to group-living, often in association with different environmental conditions. For example, species in which collective-care of offspring reduces the cost of reproduction are more common in harsh environments (true cooperative breeding), while species that collectively defend resources [...]