Preprints
There are 1692 Preprints listed.
Hijackers, hitchhikers, or co-drivers? The mysteries of microbial mobilizable genetic elements
Published: 2024-04-26
Subjects: Bacteriology, Evolution, Genetics, Life Sciences, Molecular Biology
Mobile genetic elements shape microbial gene repertoires and population dynamics, but their mechanisms of horizontal transmission are often unknown. Recent results reveal that many, possibly most, bacterial mobile genetic elements require helper elements to transfer between (or within) genomes. We refer to these non-autonomous, albeit mobile, elements as Hitcher Genetic Elements (hitchers or [...]
MacArthur’s consumer-resource model: a Rosetta Stone for competitive interactions
Published: 2024-04-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Recent developments in competition theory, namely, Modern Coexistence Theory (MCT), have aided empiricists in formulating tests of species persistence, coexistence, and evolution from simple to complex community settings. However, the parameters used to predict competitive outcomes, such as interaction coefficients, invasion growth rates, or stabilizing differences, remain biologically opaque, [...]
A research synthesis of humans, animals, and environmental compartments exposed to PFAS: A systematic evidence map and bibliometric analysis of secondary literature
Published: 2024-04-25
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences
Background Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of widely used anthropogenic chemicals. Concerns regarding their persistence and potential adverse effects have led to multiple secondary research publications. Here, we aim to assess the resulting evidence base in the systematic secondary literature by examining research gaps, evaluating the quality of reviews, and exploring [...]
Insects decline with host plants but co-extinctions seem unlikely
Published: 2024-04-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
It is commonly assumed that the loss of wild plant populations leads to co-extinctions, especially among specialized insects. Despite global declines in both terrestrial insects and plants, the relationship between these trends remains elusive. Here, we address this gap by analyzing the relationship between population trends of insects and their host plants in Germany, encompassing over 150,000 [...]
Addictive manipulation: a perspective on the role of reproductive parasitism in the evolution of bacteria-eukaryote symbioses
Published: 2024-04-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Other Microbiology
Wolbachia bacteria encompass noteworthy reproductive manipulators of their arthropod hosts. which influence host reproduction to favour their own transmission, also exploiting toxin-antitoxin systems. Recently, multiple other bacterial symbionts of arthropods have been shown to display comparable manipulative capabilities. Here we wonder whether such phenomena are truly restricted to arthropod [...]
Historic residential segregation impacts biodiversity data availability disparately across the tree of life
Published: 2024-04-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Race and Ethnicity, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
Urbanization alters species ranges and nature’s contributions to people, motivating urban conservation. Residential segregation policies have left an indelible impact on urban environments, greenspaces, and wildlife communities, creating socioeconomic heterogeneity and altering biota. However, the extent to which data sufficiently capture urban biodiversity patterns remains unclear, especially [...]
Evolution and maintenance of mtDNA gene content across eukaryotes
Published: 2024-04-22
Subjects: Evolution, Genetics, Genomics
Across eukaryotes, most genes required for mitochondrial function have been transferred to, or otherwise acquired by, the nucleus. Encoding genes in the nucleus has many advantages. So why do mitochondria retain any genes at all? Why does the set of mtDNA genes vary so much across different species? And how do species maintain functionality in the mtDNA genes they do retain? In this review we [...]
Is turning food waste into insect feed an uphill climb? A review of persistent challenges
Published: 2024-04-22
Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics, Entomology, Food Science, Technology and Innovation
One major hurdle for our current food system is the enormous amount of food that goes to waste. Insect farming has been proposed as a potential solution, offering one way to turn waste into agricultural resources such as livestock and aquaculture feed. In this article, we review the types of materials currently used to raise insects at commercial scales, and we examine whether those materials [...]
The nitroplast and its relatives support a universal model of features predicting gene retention in endosymbiont and organelle genomes
Published: 2024-04-22
Subjects: Evolution, Genomics
Endosymbiotic relationships have shaped eukaryotic life. As endosymbionts coevolve with their host, towards full integration as organelles, their genomes tend to shrink, with genes being completely lost or transferred to the host nucleus. Modern endosymbionts and organelles show diverse patterns of gene retention, and why some genes and not others are retained in these genomes is not fully [...]
THE CURRENT KNOWLEDGE OF TUBERCULOSIS IN PINNIPEDS
Published: 2024-04-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Infectious diseases and zoonoses, particularly, are in the spotlight after the 17 COVID-19 pandemic. Under this scenario, the One Health approach becomes of fundamental relevance to understanding, analyzing, interpreting, and, ideally, preventing future scenarios of the spread of infectious agents. It is estimated that about 60% of human infectious diseases are caused by zoonotic agents. A clear [...]
Leveraging AI to improve evidence synthesis in conservation
Published: 2024-04-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Systematic evidence syntheses (systematic reviews and maps) summarize knowledge and are used to support decisions and policies in a variety of applied fields, from medicine and public health to biodiversity conservation. However, conducting these exercises in conservation is often expensive and slow, which can impede their use and hamper progress in addressing the biodiversity crisis. With the [...]
Environmental connectivity influences the origination of adaptive processes
Published: 2024-04-18
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Spatial structure is hypothesized to be an important factor in the origin of life, wherein encapsulated chemical reaction networks came together to form systems capable adaptive complexification via Darwinian evolution. In this work, we use a computational model to investigate how different patterns of environmental connectivity influence the emergence of adaptive processes in simulated systems [...]
Using causal diagrams and superpopulation models to correct geographic biases in biodiversity monitoring data
Published: 2024-04-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Biodiversity monitoring schemes periodically measure species’ abundances and distributions at a sample of sites to understand how they have changed over time. Often, the aim is to infer change in an average sense across some wider landscape. Inference to the wider landscape is simple if the species’ abundances and distributions are similar at sampled to non-sampled locations. Otherwise, the [...]
COVID-19 could accelerate the decline in recreational hunting: a natural experiment from Northern Italy
Published: 2024-04-16
Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics, Environmental Studies, Sociology
Although many studies highlighted the potential of COVID-19 to reshape existing models of wildlife management, empirical research on this topic has been scarce, particularly in Europe. We investigated the potential of COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate the ongoing decline in an aging population of recreational hunters in Italy. Namely, we modeled spatiotemporal trends between 2011 and 2021 in the [...]
Sixty years since Silent Spring: a map of meta-analyses on organochlorine pesticides reveals urgent needs for improving methodological quality.
Published: 2024-04-16
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring inspired a wave of research on the impacts of organochlorine pesticides, followed by a subsequent wave of meta-analyses. These meta-analyses are now routinely used to inform policy decisions. However, the methodological quality of meta-analyses on organochlorine pesticides remains largely unknown. Here, our study systematically maps and evaluates the methodological [...]