Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Other Life Sciences
Technique of ultra-extensive urban greening using mosses
Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Other Life Sciences
The greening of impermeable surfaces, such as rooftops and unused concrete areas, offers multifaceted benefits to urban environments (biodiversity, temperature regulation, water retention, aesthetics). An innovative "ultra-extensive" greening technique, centered on promoting moss growth, provides a lightweight, cost-effective, and low-maintenance solution. The aim of this paper is to describe [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Andaman
Published: 2023-08-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
The 'Mangroves of the Andaman' is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology) within the Andaman province. It includes intertidal forests and shrublands of the marine ecoregions of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; the Andaman Sea Coral Coast of Myanmar and Thailand; and northwest Sumatra. The diverse biota is characterised by 43 species of true mangroves, [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Western Coral Triangle
Published: 2023-08-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
The 'Mangroves of the Western Coral Triangle' is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology. It includes intertidal forests and shrublands of the following marine ecoregions in the Western Coral Triangle province: Banda Sea, Eastern Philippines, Halmahera, Lesser Sunda, Northeast Sulawesi, Palawan/North Borneo, Papua, and Sulawesi Sea/Makassar Strait. The [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Bay of Bengal
Published: 2023-08-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Mangroves of the Bay of Bengal is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology) spanning parts of South and Southeast Asia. It includes coastal areas of eastern India, Bangladesh, and northern and central Myanmar, and contains one of the largest single mangrove ecosystems in the world: the Sundarbans. Mangroves dominate along the extensive coastal waterways [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the South China Sea
Published: 2023-08-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
The 'Mangroves of South China Sea' is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology in the South China Sea province. It includes intertidal forests and shrublands of the marine ecoregions of the Gulf of Tonkin, South China Sea Oceanic Islands and Southern China. The diverse biota of this ecoregion is characterised by 42 species of true mangroves, plus many [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Sunda Shelf
Published: 2023-08-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
"The 'Mangroves of the Sunda Shelf' is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology in the Sunda Shelf province. It includes intertidal forests and shrublands of the marine regions of the Malacca Straits, Gulf of Thailand, southern Viet Nam and the Sunda Shelf/Java Sea. This province has a tropical climate with protracted rainfall that provides very favourable [...]
Sampling strategy matters to accurately estimate response curves’ parameters in species distribution models
Published: 2022-08-27
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Aim: Assessing how different sampling strategies affect the accuracy and precision of species response curves estimated by parametric Species Distribution Models. Major taxa studied: Virtual plant species. Location: Abruzzo (Italy). Time period: Timeless (simulated data). Methods: We simulated the occurrence of two virtual species with different ecology (generalist vs specialist) and [...]
The promise of an evolutionary perspective of alcohol consumption
Published: 2022-08-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Neuroscience and Neurobiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health
The urgent need for medical treatments of alcohol use disorders has motivated the search for novel molecular targets of alcohol response. Most studies exploit the strengths of lab animals without considering how these and other species may have adapted to respond to alcohol in an ecological context. Here, we provide an evolutionary perspective on the molecular and genetic underpinnings of alcohol [...]
The coevolutionary mosaic of bat betacoronavirus emergence risk
Published: 2022-07-01
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biology, Biotechnology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences
Pathogen evolution is one of the least predictable components of disease emergence, particularly in nature. Here, building on principles established by the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution, we develop a quantitative, spatially-explicit framework for mapping the evolutionary risk of viral emergence. Driven by interest in diseases like SARS, MERS, and COVID-19, we examine the global [...]
Sea turtle conservation as a blueprint for freshwater turtles in the eastern U.S.
Published: 2022-06-23
Subjects: Education, Law, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
With turtles and tortoises being one of the most threatened taxa on the planet, dire conservation action is needed. As a global hotspot for turtles — with over 85 species and subspecies — the U.S. can play a major role in curbing turtle extinction. It has already done so for its six species of sea turtles, which experienced dramatic declines over the 19th and 20th centuries due to human [...]
Rates of ecological knowledge learning in Pemba, Tanzania: Implications for childhood evolution.
Published: 2022-04-23
Subjects: Arts and Humanities, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Humans live in diverse, complex niches where survival and reproduction are conditional on the acquisition of knowledge. Humans also have long childhoods, spending more than a decade before they become net producers. Whether the time needed to learn has been a selective force in the evolution of long human childhood is unclear, because there is little comparative data on the [...]
A human-neutral large carnivore? No patterns in the body mass of gray wolves (Canis lupus) across a gradient of anthropization
Published: 2022-04-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
English - The gray wolf (Canis lupus) expanded its distribution in Europe over the last few decades. To better understand the extent to which wolves could re-occupy their historical range, nowadays including anthropized landscapes, it is important to test if and how anthropization can affect fitness-related traits in this species. We modeled how anthropization was associated with the body [...]
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 [...]
Soil biota impacts on plant access to different water pools in soil
Published: 2022-02-22
Subjects: Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Aims: Soil water availability depends on the capacity of soil pores to hold it via physical forces creating gradient of availability from tightly bound water to highly mobile water. Abiotic factors directly affect the size of these pools and plant access to them. Biotic factors influence plant-soil-water relations and possibly affect soil properties and plant access to different water pools. [...]
Foraging complexity and the evolution of childhood
Published: 2022-02-04
Subjects: Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Our species’ long childhood is hypothesized to have evolved as a period for learning complex foraging skills. Researchers studying the development of foraging proficiency have focused on assessing this hypothesis, yet studies present inconsistent conclusions regarding the connection between foraging skill development and niche complexity. In this paper, we leverage published records of child [...]