Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Entomology

Brood thermoregulation effectiveness is positively linked to the amount of brood but not to the number of bees in honeybee colonies

Ugoline Godeau, Maryline Pioz, Olivier Martin, et al.

Published: 2022-05-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences

To ensure the optimal development of brood, a honeybee colony needs to regulate its temperature within a certain range of values (thermoregulation), regardless of environmental changes in biotic and abiotic factors. While the set of behavioural and physiological responses implemented by honeybees to regulate the brood temperature has been well studied, less is known about the factors that may [...]

Multi-level instrumentation of bivouac thermoregulation: Current methods and future directions

Kaitlin Baudier, Theodore P. Pavlic

Published: 2022-03-24
Subjects: Entomology, Life Sciences

Army ants are frequently used as charismatic organismal representatives of collective behavior in nature, providing templates for modern engineered systems as well as continuing to drive aspirational goals for the engineered systems of the future. Most attention on army ants has been focused on the ability of groups of ants to self-assemble into adaptive structures such as bridges or even [...]

The Global Forest Health Crisis: A Public Good Social Dilemma in Need of International Collective Action

Geoffrey M Williams, Matthew D. Ginzel, Zhao Ma, et al.

Published: 2022-03-10
Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Behavioral Economics, Biodiversity, Biology, Biosecurity, Botany, Economics, Entomology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Studies, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, International Relations, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Other Plant Sciences, Pathogenic Microbiology, Plant Biology, Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, Political Science, Science and Technology Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Society is confronted by interconnected threats to ecological sustainability. Among these is the devastation of forests by destructive non-native pathogens and insects introduced through global trade, leading to the loss of critical ecosystem services and a global forest health crisis. We argue that the forest health crisis is a public good social dilemma and propose a response framework that [...]

Drivers of community assembly change during succession in wood-decomposing insect communities

Sebastian Seibold, Wolfgang W. Weisser, Didem Ambarli, et al.

Published: 2022-02-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences

1. The patterns of successional change of decomposer communities is unique in that resource availability predictably decreases as decomposition proceeds. Saproxylic (i.e., deadwood-dependent) beetles are a highly diverse and functionally important decomposer group, and their community composition is affected by both deadwood characteristics and other environmental factors. Understanding how [...]

A set of principles and practical suggestions for equitable fieldwork in biology

Valeria Ramírez-Castañeda, Erin P. Westeen, Jeffrey Frederick, et al.

Published: 2022-02-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Forest Sciences, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Plant Sciences

Field biology is an area of research that involves working directly with living organisms in situ through a practice known as “fieldwork.” Conducting fieldwork often requires complex logistical planning within multiregional or multinational teams, interacting with local communities at field sites, and collaborative research led by one or a few of the core team members. However, existing power [...]

Flower strips increase the control of rosy apple aphids after parasitoid releases in an apple orchard

Kévin Tougeron, Louise Ferrais, Pauline Gardin, et al.

Published: 2022-01-14
Subjects: Agricultural Economics, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Horticulture, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences

Mass releases of two parasitoid species, Aphidius matricariae and Ephedrus cerasicola, may provide an alternative measure to pesticides to control the rosy apple aphid Dysaphis plantaginea in organic apple orchards. As a proof of concept study, we tested if the presence of flower strips between apple tree rows could improve the action of three early parasitoid releases—and of other naturally [...]

For the few, not the many: local economic conditions constrain the large-scale management of invasive mosquitoes

Jacopo Cerri, Chiara Sciandra, Tania Contardo, et al.

Published: 2022-01-06
Subjects: Economics, Entomology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Other Medicine and Health Sciences, Public Economics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Systems Biology

Invasive mosquitoes are an emerging ecological and sanitary issue. Many factors have been suggested as drivers or barriers to their control, still no study quantified their influence over mosquito management by local authorities, nor their interplay with local economic conditions. We assessed how multiple environmental, sanitary, and socio-economic factors affected the engagement of [...]

Impact of heat stress on the fitness outcomes of symbiotic infection in aphids: a meta-analysis

Kévin Tougeron, Corentin Iltis

Published: 2021-11-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Microbiology

Beneficial microorganisms shape the evolutionary trajectories of their hosts, facilitating or constraining the colonization of new ecological niches. One convincing example entails the responses of insect-microbe associations to rising temperatures. Indeed, the insect resilience to stressful high temperatures depends on the genetic identity of the obligate symbiont and the presence of heat [...]

Maternal and paternal age effects on male antler flies: a field experiment

Christopher Angell, Rebecca Janacek, Howard D Rundle

Published: 2021-11-11
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences

In many species, parental age at reproduction can influence offspring performance and lifespan, but the direction of these effects and the traits affected vary among studies. Data on parental age effects are still scarce in non-captive populations, especially insects, despite species such as fruit flies being models in laboratory-based aging research. We performed a biologically relevant [...]

Comment on “Information arms race explains plant-herbivore chemical communication in ecological communities”

Ethan Bass, André Kessler

Published: 2021-09-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences

Zu et al (Science, 19 Jun 2020, p. 1377) propose that an ‘information arms-race’ between plants and herbivores explains plant-herbivore communication at the community level. However, our analysis shows that key assumptions of the proposed model either a) conflict with standard evolutionary theory or b) are not supported by the available evidence. We also show that the presented statistical [...]

The arrival and spread of the European firebug Pyrrhocoris apterus in Australia as documented by citizen scientists

Luis Mata, Blythe Vogel, Estibaliz Palma, et al.

Published: 2021-09-01
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences

We present evidence of the recent introduction and quick spread of the European firebug Pyrrhocoris apterus in Australia, as documented on the citizen science platform iNaturalist. The first public record of the species was reported in December 2018 in the City of Brimbank (Melbourne, Victoria). Since then, the species distribution has quickly expanded into 15 local government areas surrounding [...]

Many parasitoids lack adult fat accumulation, despite fatty acid synthesis: A discussion of concepts and considerations for future research

Bertanne Visser, Cécile Le Lann, Caroline M. Nieberding, et al.

Published: 2021-08-25
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Physiology

Fat reserves, specifically the accumulation of triacylglycerols, are a major energy source and play a key role for life histories. Fat accumulation is a conserved metabolic pattern across most insects, yet in most parasitoid species adults do not gain fat mass, even when nutrients are readily available and provided ad libitum. This extraordinary physiological phenotype has evolved repeatedly in [...]

WHY DO INSECTS EVOLVE IMMUNE PRIMING? A SEARCH FOR CROSSROADS

Arun Prakash, imroze khan

Published: 2021-08-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Education, Entomology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences

Until recently, it was assumed that insects lack immune memory since they do not have vertebrate-like specialized memory cells. Therefore, their most well studied evolutionary response against pathogens was increased basal immunity. However, growing evidence suggests that many insects also exhibit a form of immune memory (immune priming), where prior exposure to a low dose of infection confers [...]

Abundance- and biomass-based metrics of functional composition of macroinvertebrates as surrogates of ecosystem attributes in Afrotropical streams

Augustine Sitati, Frank Onderi Masese, Mourine J. Yegon, et al.

Published: 2021-08-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences

The composition of macroinvertebrate functional feeding groups (FFGs) has been used as surrogates of ecosystem attributes in aquatic ecosystems but studies that utilize such knowledge are still limited in the tropics. This study investigated the suitability of abundance- vs. biomass-based metrics of macroinvertebrate FFGs as surrogates of ecosystems attributes of the Sosiani-Kipkaren River in [...]

The evolutionary relevance of social learning and transmission of behaviors in non-social arthropods

Caroline M. Nieberding, Matteo Marcantonio, Raluca Voda, et al.

Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Life Sciences

Research on social learning has centered around vertebrates, but evidence is accumulating that small-brained, non-social arthropods also learn from others. Social learning can lead to social inheritance when socially acquired behaviors are transmitted to subsequent generations. Here, we first highlight the complementarities between social and classical genetic inheritance, using oviposition site [...]

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