Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Systems Biology
Modeling complex biological systems: Tackling the parameter curse through evolution
Published: 2021-02-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Systems Biology
In this perspective paper we review a previously published evolutionary model of the lac-operon to argue and demonstrate the importance of using evolutionary methods to derive relevant parameters. We show that by doing so we can debug experimental and modeling artifacts.
Ecological Countermeasures for Pandemic Prevention: When Ecological Restoration is a Human Health Imperative
Published: 2020-12-06
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Bacteriology, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Public Health, Epidemiology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Immunopathology, Integrative Biology, International Public Health, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Parasitology, Pathogenic Microbiology, Population Biology, Public Health, Systems Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology, Veterinary Pathology and Pathobiology, Zoology
Ecological restoration should be regarded as a public health service. Unfortunately, the lack of quantitative linkages between environmental and human health has limited recognition of these principle. Advent of COVID-19 pandemic provides the impetus for the further discussion. We propose ecological countermeasures as highly targeted, landscape-based interventions to arrest the drivers of land [...]
Reducing land use-induced spillover risk by fostering landscape immunity: policy priorities for conservation practitioners
Published: 2020-10-16
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Forest Sciences, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Immunopathology, International and Area Studies, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Parasitology, Population Biology, Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration, Science and Technology Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Systems Biology
Anthropogenic land use change is the major driver of zoonotic pathogen spillover from wildlife to humans. In response to the global spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the agent of COVID-19 disease), there have been renewed calls for landscape conservation as a disease preventive measure. While protected areas are a vital conservation tool for wildlands, more than 50% of habitable land is now [...]
A call to action: Understanding land use-induced zoonotic spillover to protect environmental, animal, and human health
Published: 2020-09-26
Subjects: Animal Diseases, Biodiversity, Biology, Diseases, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Parasitic Diseases, Public Health, Systems Biology, Veterinary Medicine
The rapid, global spread and human health impacts of SARS-CoV-2, the agent of COVID-19 disease, demonstrates humanity’s vulnerability to zoonotic disease pandemics. Although anthropogenic land use change is known to be the major driver of zoonotic pathogen spillover from wildlife to human populations, the scientific underpinnings of land use-induced zoonotic spillover have rarely been [...]
Quantifying the autonomic response to stressors – one way to expand the definition of "stress" in animals
Published: 2019-11-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Endocrinology, Life Sciences, Physiology, Systems Biology
Quantifying the impact of changes or stimuli in the external and internal environment that are challenging (“stressors”) to whole organisms is difficult. To date, physiological ecologists and ecological physiologists have mostly used measures of glucocorticoids (GCs) to assess the impact of stressors on animals. This is of course too simplistic as Hans Seyle himself characterized the response of [...]
Toward a Pluralistic Conception of Resilience
Published: 2019-06-29
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Computer Sciences, Dynamic Systems, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Other Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability, Systems Biology
The concept of resilience occupies an increasingly prominent position within contemporary efforts to confront many of modernitys most pressing challenges, including global environmental change, famine, infrastructure, poverty, and terrorism, to name but a few. Received views of resilience span a broad conceptual and theoretical terrain, with a diverse range of application domains and settings. In [...]
Ecosystem services networks: an accessible framework for decision-making
Published: 2019-02-14
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Systems Biology
Multifunctional landscapes provide multiple ecosystem services and are managed collaboratively to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem function and support human wellbeing. Linking ecological patterns across systems is essential to advance ecosystem services research and inform ecologically-sustainable landscape management. Network theory provides a robust, accessible framework to build knowledge [...]