Preprints
There are 1657 Preprints listed.
Predation risk and social factors influence vigilance in a social bird species
Published: 2019-02-04
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Predation is a critical selective force, facilitating the evolution of anti-predatory behaviours, such as vigilance. However, this behaviour can also be used to monitor conspecifics. Here we evaluate the antipredator and social functions of vigilance in Siberian jays. In this bird species, groups can include retained offspring that remain with their parents well beyond independence, as well as [...]
Size-selective harvesting and individual personality in a social fish
Published: 2019-02-04
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
In fisheries worldwide, larger fish are subjected to substantially greater fishing mortality than smaller fish. Body length and behavioral traits are often correlated, such that fisheries-induced changes in either behaviour or morphology can also alter other traits as result of direct or indirect selection. Consistent behavioral differences among individuals, known as personality traits, provide [...]
Seeing rare birds where there are none: self-rated expertise predicts correct species identification, but also more false rarities
Published: 2019-02-04
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Ornithology
The use of crowdsourced data is growing rapidly, particularly in ornithology. Citizen science greatly contributes to our knowledge, however, little is known about the reliability of data collected in that way. We found, using an online picture quiz, that self-proclaimed expert birders were more likely to misidentify common British bird species as exotic or rare species, compared to people who [...]
Complexity revealed in the greening of the Arctic
Published: 2019-02-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
As the Arctic warms, vegetation is responding and satellite measures indicate widespread greening at high latitudes. This ‘greening of the Arctic’ is among the world’s most significant large-scale ecological responses to global climate change. However, a consensus is emerging that the underlying causes and future dynamics of so-called Arctic greening and browning trends are more complex, [...]
Social genetic effects (IGE) and genetic intra- and intersexual genetic correlation contribute to the total heritable variance in parental care
Published: 2019-02-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The social environment can influence phenotypes through indirect genetic effects (IGEs), whereby genetic variance among interacting individuals explains some of the phenotypic variance. Empirical studies of wild populations often ignore IGEs especially among unrelated individuals, probably due to data limitations. This is problematic because IGEs can crucially affect estimates of heritable [...]
Be prudent if it fits you well: male mate choice depends on male size in a golden orb-weaver spider
Published: 2019-01-31
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Male preference for high-quality females is expected to evolve when male reproductive potential is restricted. However, when there is competition among males, some models predict the evolution of assortative male mate choice, in which good competitors choose high quality females while poor competitors choose lower quality females to avoid competition. In Trichonephila clavipes spiders, males have [...]
Replication alert: behavioural lateralisation in a detour test is not repeatable in fishes
Published: 2019-01-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Behavioural lateralisation, defined as the asymmetric expression of cognitive functions, is reported to enhance key fitness-relevant traits such as predator escape performance, multitasking abilities, and group coordination. Therefore, studies reporting negative effects on lateralisation in fish due to environmental stressors such as ocean acidification, hypoxia, and pollutants are worrisome. [...]
A comparative study of differential selection pressure over the nesting cycle in birds
Published: 2019-01-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Reproductive allocation varies greatly across species and is determined by their life-history and ecology. This variation is usually assessed as the number of eggs or propagules (hereafter: fecundity). However, in species with parental care, individuals face trade-offs that affect the allocation of resources among the stages of reproduction as well as to reproduction as a whole. Thus, it is [...]
Experimentally increased costs of parental care are shunted to offspring in species with extended care
Published: 2019-01-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Biparental care systems are a valuable model to examine conflict, cooperation, and coordination between unrelated individuals, as the product of the interactions between the parents influences the fitness of both individuals. A common experimental technique for testing coordinated responses to changes in the costs of parental care is to temporarily handicap one parent, inducing a higher cost of [...]
Elevated nest predation risk promotes offspring size variation in birds with prolonged parental care.
Published: 2019-01-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Predation of offspring is the main cause of reproductive failure in many species, and the mere fear of offspring predation shapes reproductive strategies. Yet, natural predation risk is ubiquitously variable and can be unpredictable. Consequently, the perceived prospect of predation early in a reproductive cycle may not reflect the actual risk to ensuing offspring. An increased variance in [...]
No honesty in warning signals across life stages in an aposematic bug
Published: 2019-01-28
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Theory predicts that warning signals should exhibit low variation to increase learning efficiency in predators. However, many species exhibit variation in warning colours within species and even within populations. An understudied example of within species variation is that between life stages, where animals change warning colouration throughout ontogeny. Understanding how warning signals change [...]
Steroid Receptors and Vertebrate Evolution
Published: 2019-01-25
Subjects: 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, [...]
The more you get, the more you give: Positive cascading effects shape the evolutionary potential of prenatal maternal investment
Published: 2019-01-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Maternal effects are prevalent in nature and significantly contribute to variation in phenotypic trait expression. However, little attention has been paid to the factors shaping variation in the traits mediating these effects (maternal effectors). Specific maternal effectors are often not identified, and typically they are assumed to be inherited in an additive genetic and autosomal manner. Given [...]
Dominance determines fish community biomass in a temperate seagrass ecosystem
Published: 2019-01-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Biodiversity and ecosystem function are often correlated, but there are multiple hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Ecosystem functions such as primary or secondary production may be maximized by species richness, evenness in species abundances, or the presence or dominance of species with certain traits. Here, we combined surveys of natural fish communities (conducted [...]
Returning the Earth to Mankind and Mankind to Earth: an Ecosystemic Approach to Advocacy, Public Policies, Research and Teaching Programmes
Published: 2019-01-20
Subjects: Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In view of the overwhelming pressures on the global environment and the need to disrupt the systems that drive them, an ecosystemic theoretical and practical framework is posited for the evaluation and planning of communication, advocacy, public policies, research and teaching programmes; Priority is given to a set of values, norms and policies in view of human well-being, quality of life and [...]