Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Animal Sciences
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: 2022-04-23
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 [...]
Extreme heatwave drives topography-dependent patterns of mortality in a bed-forming intertidal barnacle, with implications for associated community structure
Published: 2022-04-01
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Heatwave frequency and intensity will increase as climate change progresses. Intertidal sessile invertebrates, which often form thermally benign microhabitats for associated species, are vulnerable to thermal stress because they have minimal ability to behaviourally thermoregulate. Understanding what factors influence the mortality of biogenic species and how heatwaves might impact their ability [...]
Hematological and Biochemical Reference Intervals of the Visayan Warty Pig in Negros Occidental, Philippines
Published: 2022-03-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Laboratory and Basic Science Research Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Animal Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Physiology, Zoology
The Visayan warty pig is one of the endemic species of the Philippines that have been listed as "critically endangered." Conservation actions and efforts, such as health assessments, are being carried out to preserve the population. However, there is limited information about the normal hematological and biochemical profile of the species. The study presents reference intervals essential for [...]
Long-term trends in seasonality and abundance of three key zooplankters in the upper San Francisco Estuary
Published: 2022-03-02
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Zooplankton provide critical food for threatened and endangered fish species in the San Francisco Estuary (estuary). Reduced food supply has been implicated in the Pelagic Organism Decline of the early 2000s and further changes in zooplankton abundance, seasonality, and distribution may continue to threaten declining fishes. While we have a wealth of monitoring data, we know little about the [...]
Achieving global biodiversity goals by 2050 requires urgent and integrated actions
Published: 2022-02-25
Subjects: Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Plant Sciences
Human impacts on the Earth’s biosphere are driving the global biodiversity crisis. Governments are preparing to agree on a set of actions intended to halt the loss of biodiversity and put it on a path to recovery by 2050. We provide evidence that the proposed actions can bend the curve for biodiversity, but only if these actions are implemented urgently and in an integrated manner.
101 years of biofluorescent animal studies: trends in literature, novel hypotheses, and best practices moving forward
Published: 2022-02-06
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Bioinformatics, Life Sciences
Biofluorescent animals have become a recent trend in natural history publishing. While the functions and origins of biofluorescence in fauna remains somewhat controversial, trends in biofluorescence throughout published literature may elucidate these concepts. Here we review 101 years of biofluorescent studies encompassing 108 published papers and 977 unique species records. Our results provide [...]
A low-cost solution for documenting, tracking, and verifying cage-level animal husbandry tasks using wireless QR scanners and cloud-based spreadsheets
Published: 2022-02-04
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Animal care is a critical component underlying successful behavioral and cognition experiments. Technological solutions for documentation and verification of care can aid in monitoring that activities are completed according to standard operating procedures and ensure that no individuals are overlooked. Here, I summarize a low-cost, flexible, and easy to use system that I developed to document [...]
Microclimate shifts in nest-boxes and natural cavities before, during and after nesting
Published: 2022-01-17
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physiology, Population Biology
Animals breeding in anthropogenic shelters such as nest-boxes experience nesting environment in which they did not originally evolve. Over the past decades, they are additionally challenged by climate change – a major environmental force influencing their reproductive ecology. Despite the central importance of nesting microclimate for offspring development and fitness, very little is known about [...]
Adaptations and plastic phenotypic responses of marine animals to the environmental challenges of the high intertidal zone
Published: 2022-01-16
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Physiology
The high intertidal zone is home to an incredible variety of marine animals, as it offers an escape from low intertidal/subtidal predation and competition, among other advantages. However, this area of the shore also comes with many tide-driven and emersion-associated environmental stressors, such as desiccation, high temperatures and freezing stress, hypoxia, salinity fluctuations, nitrogenous [...]
Latitudinal but not elevational variation in blood glucose level is linked to life history across passerine birds
Published: 2022-01-13
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 [...]
Temporal patterns in prey size between sexes in a raptor with extreme size dimorphism: testing the intersexual competition hypothesis using web-sourced photographs
Published: 2021-11-28
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Zoology
In most vertebrates, males are larger than females. For raptors, sexual size dimorphism is reversed, with females being larger. Reversed sexual dimorphism (RSD) in raptors is strongly linked to diet, with species feeding on the most agile prey, for example bird-eating raptors, showing the greatest size differences between the sexes. Hypotheses for reversed sexual dimorphism (RSD) include the [...]