Preprints
There are 1657 Preprints listed.
Exploratory and confirmatory research in the open science era
Published: 2019-04-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
1. Applied ecological research is increasingly inspired by the open science movement. However, new challenges about how we define our science when biodiversity data is being shared and re-used are not solved. Among these challenges is the risk associated with blurring the distinction between research that mainly seeks to explore patterns with no a-priori articulated hypotheses (exploratory [...]
A protocol for using drones to assist monitoring of large breeding bird colonies
Published: 2019-04-29
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Zoology
Drones are rapidly becoming part of environmental monitoring and management applications. They provide an opportunity to improve a number of activities related to monitoring population dynamics of aggregations of wildlife. Bird surveys using drones have attracted particular attention, with a range of potential metrics able to be derived from high resolution drone imagery. Whilst a number of [...]
Disentangling chronic regeneration failure in endangered woodland ecosystems
Published: 2019-04-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems requires the facilitation of natural regeneration by plants, often augmented by large-scale active revegetation. The success of such projects is highly variable. Risk factors may be readily identifiable in a general sense, but it is rarely clear how they play out individually, or in combination. We addressed this problem with a field experiment on the [...]
Lack of definition of mathematical terms in ecology: The case of the sigmoid class of functions in macro-ecology
Published: 2019-04-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Defining mathematical terms and objects is a constant issue in ecology; often definitions are absent, erroneous, or imprecise. Through a bibliographic prospection, we show that this problem appears in macro-ecology (biogeography and community ecology) where the lack of definition for the sigmoid class of functions results in difficulties of interpretation and communication. In order to solve this [...]
Improving scientific impact: how to practice science that influences environmental policy and management
Published: 2019-03-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Scientists devote substantial time and resources to research intended to help solve environmental problems. Environmental managers and policymakers must decide how to use the best available research evidence to prioritize actions leading to desired environmental outcomes. Yet decision-makers can face barriers to using scientific evidence to inform action. They may be unaware of the evidence, lack [...]
Steroid Receptors and Vertebrate Evolution
Published: 2019-03-30
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Considering that life on earth evolved about 3.7 billion years ago, vertebrates are young, appearing in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion about 542 to 515 million years ago. Results from sequence analyses of genomes from bacteria, yeast, plants, invertebrates and vertebrates indicate that receptors for adrenal steroids (aldosterone, cortisol), and sex steroids (estrogen, [...]
Models of spatiotemporal variation in rabbit abundance reveal management hotspots for an invasive species
Published: 2019-03-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Aim: The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) is a notorious economic and environmental pest species in its invasive range. To better understand the population and range dynamics of this species, long-term abundance data has been collected across a broad range of climatic and environmental condition in Australia. We analysed this time series data to determine whether inter-annual variation in [...]
A continental measure of urbanness predicts avian response to local urbanization
Published: 2019-03-27
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
Understanding species-specific relationships with their environment is essential for ecology, biogeography, and conservation biology. Moreover, understanding how these relationships change with spatial scale is critical to mitigating potential threats to biodiversity. But methods which measure inter-specific variation in responses to environmental parameters, generalizable across multiple spatial [...]
Mapping and understanding the digital biodiversity knowledge about vertebrates in the Atlantic Rainforest
Published: 2019-03-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Biodiversity data are fundamental for macroecological studies. Recent efforts on gathering global data have not been sufficient to surpass biases and gaps. This incompleteness has serious consequences on conservation and ecological understanding, therefore it is of major importance to map, quantify and describe these flaws. In this paper we aimed to assess inventory incompleteness for the [...]
Invasive species interact with climatic variability to reduce success of natives
Published: 2019-02-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Plants have evolved resource-conservative and resource-acquisitive strategies to deal with variability in rainfall, but interactions with dominant invasive species may undermine these adaptations. To investigate the relative effect of invaders on species with these two strategies, we manipulated rainfall and invasive grass presence and measured demographic rates in three resource-acquisitive and [...]
Transcriptional Activation of Elephant Shark Mineralocorticoid Receptor by Corticosteroids, Progesterone and Spironolactone
Published: 2019-02-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Medicine and Health Sciences
We report the analysis of activation by corticosteroids and progesterone of full-length mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) from elephant shark, a cartilaginous fish belonging to the oldest group of jawed vertebrates. Based on their measured activities, aldosterone, cortisol, 11-deoxycorticosterone, corticosterone, 11-deoxcortisol, progesterone and 19-norprogesterone are potential physiological [...]
Climate, human disturbance and geometric constraints drive the elevational richness pattern of birds in a biodiversity hotspot in south-western China
Published: 2019-02-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
We explored the elevational richness patterns of birds in a biodiversity hotspot in south-western China, the Gaoligong Mountains and assessed the role of different spatial factors, climatic factors and landscape composition in shaping the richness patterns. The east slope of the southern part of Gaoligong Mountains (24.79°N-26.49°N, 98.65°E-98.93°E) is the western-most part of the Hengduan [...]
Ice-free area expansion compounds the non-native species threat to Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity
Published: 2019-02-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Warming across ice-covered regions will result in changes to both the physical and climatic environment, revealing new ice-free habitat and new climatically suitable habitats for non-native species establishment. Recent studies have independently quantified each of these aspects in Antarctica, where ice-free areas form crucial habitat for the majority of terrestrial biodiversity. Here we [...]
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 [...]
Does aggression towards rivals contribute to mate guarding in Drosophila melanogaster?
Published: 2019-02-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Mate guarding (MG) mediated by aggression towards rivals can be a significant contributor to male reproductive fitness in many animal species. However, establishing the MG effect of aggression in species without explicit MG can be difficult. While aggression in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is well documented, only recently has it been connected to MG. Interestingly, males of this species [...]