Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Marine Biology
Collection and analysis of a global marine phytoplankton primary production dataset
Published: 2021-02-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Phytoplankton primary production is a key oceanographic process. It has intimate relationships with the marine food webs dynamics, the global carbon cycle and the Earth’s climate. The study of phytoplankton production on a global scale relies on indirect approaches due to the difficulties associated with field campaigns. On the other hand, modelling approaches require in situ data for both [...]
Ecological and environmental context shape the differential effects of a facilitator in its native and invaded ranges
Published: 2020-12-14
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Non-indigenous species often exhibit disproportionately strong negative effects in their introduced range compared to their native range, and much research has been devoted to understanding the role of shared evolutionary history, or lack thereof, in driving these differences. Less studied is whether non-indigenous species, particularly those that are important as facilitators in their native [...]
Evidence for an Allee effect in a declining fur seal population
Published: 2020-11-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Population Biology
Allee effects play an important role in the dynamics of many populations and can increase the risk of local extinction. However, some authors have questioned the weight of evidence for Allee effects in wild populations. We therefore exploited a natural experiment provided by two adjacent breeding colonies of contrasting density to investigate the potential for Allee effects in an Antarctic fur [...]
Environmental conditions promote local segregation, but functional distinctiveness allow aggregation of catfishes in the Amazonian estuary
Published: 2020-10-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Cooccurrence patterns of species can appear through niche-related processes such as (i) environmental filtering matching specific sets of traits to a given environment, and (ii) limiting similarity selecting divergent functional traits to reduce niche overlap. Locally, both processes should act together to shape the distribution of species. We evaluated the importance of environmental variables [...]
Participatory mapping of aquatic invasive species: a demonstration in a coastal lagoon
Published: 2020-10-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Aquatic Invasive species (AIS) are a growing driver of change across marine and freshwater ecosystems but spatially-explicit information is seldom available for supporting management actions and decision making. Here we conceived and tested a new participatory method to map the distribution of three invasive species (Callinectes sapidus, Procambarus clarkii and Oreochromis niloticus) in the [...]
Combining mesocosms with models to unravel the effects of global warming and ocean acidification on temperate marine ecosystems
Published: 2020-10-11
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Ocean warming and species exploitation have already caused large-scale reorganization of biological communities across the world. Accurate projections of future biodiversity change require a comprehensive understanding of how entire communities respond to global change. We combined a time-dynamic integrated food web modelling approach (Ecosim) with a community-level mesocosm experiment to [...]
Echolocation and Navigational Distortion Hypothesis of the Short Finned Pilot Whale Beaching in Southern Coast of Tamil Nadu
Published: 2020-08-11
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Cetacean strandings have been a common occurrence in the past and has been recorded in various places. There have been attempts to explain the phenomenon of mass beaching with various theories. Here in this article we propose a hypothesis on the recent mass stranding of Short-finned pilot whales Globicephala macrorhynchus in the southern coast of Tamil Nadu, India. We propose that navigation [...]
The effects of population synchrony, life history, and access constraints on benefits from fishing portfolios
Published: 2020-08-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Population Biology
Natural resources often exhibit large interannual fluctuations in productivity driven by shifting environmental conditions, and this translates to high variability in the revenue resource users can earn. However, users can dampen this variability by harvesting a portfolio of resources. In the context of fisheries, this means targeting multiple populations, though the ability to actually build [...]
Animal size and seawater temperature, but not pH, influence a repeatable startle response behaviour in a wide-ranging marine mollusc
Published: 2020-06-16
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Startle response behaviours are important in predator avoidance and escape for a wide array of animals. For many marine invertebrates, however, startle response behaviours are understudied, and the effects of global change stressors on these responses are unknown. We exposed two size classes of blue mussels (Mytilus edulis × trossulus) to different combinations of temperature (15 and 19 °C) and [...]
Trophic cascades and connectivity in coastal benthic marine ecosystems: a meta-analysis of experimental and observational research
Published: 2020-05-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Predators often exert top-down control on lower trophic levels, such that their removal or addition can trigger trophic cascades. Despite coastal ecosystems containing well known trophic cascades, the abiotic and biotic factors governing the occurrence and strength of these cascades are still unclear. We worked to explain the variability of trophic cascades in benthic marine ecosystems by [...]
Financial and institutional support are important for large-scale kelp forest restoration
Published: 2020-04-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Kelps form extensive underwater forests that underpin valuable ecosystem goods and services in temperate and polar rocky coastlines worldwide. Stressors such as ocean warming and pollution are causing regional declines of kelp forests and their associated services worldwide. Kelp forest restoration is becoming a prominent management intervention, but we have little understanding of what drives [...]