Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Animal Sciences
Repeated evolution of extreme locomotor performance independent of changes in extended phenotype use in spiders
Published: 2023-04-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Biology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Many animals utilize self-built structures – so-called extended phenotypes – to enhance body functions, such as thermoregulation, prey capture or defence. Yet, it is unclear whether the evolution of animal constructions supplements or substitutes body functions. Here, using Austral brown spiders, we explored if the evolutionary loss and gain of silken webs as extended prey capture devices [...]
Interspecific behavioural interference and range dynamics: current insights and future directions
Published: 2023-04-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Novel biotic interactions in shifting communities play a key role in determining the ability of species’ ranges to track suitable habitat. To date, the impact of biotic interactions on range dynamics have predominantly been studied in the context of interactions between different trophic levels or, to a lesser extent, exploitative competition between species of the same trophic level. Yet, both [...]
What acoustic telemetry can and can’t tell us about fish biology
Published: 2023-02-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Zoology
Acoustic telemetry (AT) has become ubiquitous in aquatic monitoring and fish biology, conservation and management. Since the early use of active ultrasonic tracking that required researchers to follow at a distance their species of interest, the field has diversified considerably with exciting advances in both hydrophone and transmitter technology. Once a highly specialised methodology however, [...]
Dominant attitudes and values towards wildlife and the environment in coastal Alabama
Published: 2023-01-03
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Surveys assessing attitudes and values about the environment can help predict human behavior towards wildlife and develop effective conservation goals alongside local communities. Southern Alabama is a hotspot for biodiversity and endemism in the United States and is in need of studies to protect its wildlife. Land and wildlife management practices in Alabama have moved from indigenous-led [...]
Use of Airborne Laser Scanning to assess effects of understorey vegetation structure on nest-site selection and breeding performance in an Australian passerine bird
Published: 2022-12-17
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology
In wild bird populations, the structure of vegetation around nest-sites can influence the risk of predation of dependent offspring, generating selection for nest-sites with vegetation characteristics associated with lower predation rates. However, vegetation structure can be difficult to quantify objectively in the field, which might explain why there remains a general lack of understanding of [...]
Linking Predator Responses to Alkaloid Variability in Poison Frogs
Published: 2022-09-21
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Zoology
Many chemically-defended/aposematic species rely on diet for sequestering the toxins with which they defend themselves. This dietary acquisition can lead to variable chemical defenses across space, as the community composition of chemical sources is likely to vary across the range of (an aposematic) species. We characterized the alkaloid content of two populations of the Dyeing Poison Frog [...]
The Risk of Avian Influenza in the Southern Ocean: A practical guide
Published: 2022-08-22
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences
Advice from Avian Influenza experts suggests that there is a high risk that Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza will arrive in the Southern Ocean 2022/23-2024/25 austral summers. Since the beginning of 2022, the increasing intensity of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 outbreaks has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere, around the [...]
Draft for Open Consultation. The Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP): A status review and roadmap for global amphibian conservation.
Published: 2022-07-18
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Other Animal Sciences
As the most threatened vertebrate class on earth, amphibians are at the forefront of the biodiversity crisis, with the start of global amphibian declines and extinctions dating back several decades now. The Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP), the first taxonomic class-level plan of its kind, was first published in 2007 and then updated as a digital resource in 2015, with the goal of acting [...]
Record of Halmahera Walking (Hemiscyllium halmahera) Shark in South Morotai
Published: 2022-06-28
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Zoology
Halmahera walking shark (Hemiscyllium halmahera) was first discovered by Allen in 2013 and studies regarding this species are still limited. This species distribution includes Halmahera Island and surrounding islands in North Maluku, such as Ternate, Tidore, Bacan and Morotai. Records in Morotai, one of Indonesias most well-known marine tourism sites for shark diving, are discussed in this study, [...]
The vocal apparatus of bats: an understudied tool to reconstruct the evolutionary history of echolocation?
Published: 2022-06-12
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Until recently, bat phylogeny separated megabats (laryngeally non-echolocators) and microbats (all laryngeal echolocators) into two distinct clades. This segregation was consistent with the assumption that laryngeal echolocation was acquired by a common ancestor and inherited by all microchiropterans. Thus, laryngeal echolocation was regarded to have evolved once. Recent advances in bat genome [...]
Evolution and impact of socially transferred materials
Published: 2022-05-27
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Cell and Developmental Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Physiology, Systems Biology
Since the dawn of life, transfers of metabolized material between individuals have led to great innovations of evolution. When metabolized material is transferred from one individual’s body to another (as with sperm, eggs, milk, symbionts), secondary manipulative molecules that induce a physiological response in the receiver are often transferred along with the primary cargo. The bioactive and [...]
A Systematic Map of Research Exploring the Ecological Modifiers and Consequences of Bark Damaging Behaviour in Squirrel Species
Published: 2022-05-17
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Zoology
Bark-stripping and browsing by mammals in woodlands can cause widespread damage to trees, inhibiting tree growth and leading to whole tree or canopy death. Sciurid species worldwide are known to incorporate inner bark or cambium tissue into their diets, and outer bark can additionally be used as nesting material. The drivers and causes of bark-stripping behaviour have been investigated and [...]
Brain morphology correlates of learning and cognitive flexibility in a fish species (Poecilia reticulata)
Published: 2022-05-02
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Determining how variation in brain morphology affects cognitive abilities is important to understand inter-individual variation in cognition and, ultimately, cognitive evolution. Yet, despite many decades of research in this area, there is surprisingly little experimental data available from assays that quantify cognitive abilities and brain morphology in the same individuals. Here, we tested [...]
Neotropical Ornithology: Reckoning with historical assumptions, removing systemic barriers, and reimagining the future
Published: 2022-04-22
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Life Sciences, Ornithology
A major barrier to advancing ornithology is the systemic exclusion of professionals from the Global South. A recent special dossier, Advances in Neotropical Ornithology, and a shortfalls analysis therein, unintentionally followed a long-standing pattern of highlighting individuals, knowledge, and views from the Global North, while largely omitting the perspectives of people based within the [...]
Handling Character Dependency in Phylogenetic Inference: Extensive Performance Testing of Assumptions and Solutions Using Simulated Data
Published: 2022-04-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Bioinformatics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Character dependency is a major conceptual and methodological problem in phylogenetic inference of morphological datasets, as it violates the assumption of characters independency that is common to all phylogenetic methods. It is more frequently observed in higher-level phylogenies or in datasets characterizing major evolutionary transitions, as these represent parts of the tree of life where [...]