Preprints
There are 1692 Preprints listed.
How can biodiversity strategy and action plans incorporate genetic diversity concerns, plans, policies, capacity, and commitments?
Published: 2024-04-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Globally, national, subnational, and supranational entities are creating Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans, to develop concrete commitments and actions to curb biodiversity loss, meet international obligations and achieve a society in harmony with nature. In light of policy makers' increasing recognition of genetic diversity in helping species and ecosystems adapt and be resilient during [...]
The natural history of luck: A synthesis study of structured population models
Published: 2024-04-12
Subjects: Life Sciences, Population Biology
Chance pervades life. In turn, life histories are described by probabilities (e.g., survival, breeding) and averages across individuals (e.g., mean growth rate, age at maturity). In this study, we explored patterns of luck in lifetime outcomes by analyzing structured population models for a wide array of plant and animal species. We calculated four response variables: variance and skewness in [...]
MetaR, a global database on metabolic rates of ectotherms
Published: 2024-04-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
Whole-organism metabolic rate is a key trait for understanding ectotherms’ responses to ongoing environmental change. It represents the interface through which organisms interact with their environment and therefore allows for making predictions across various levels of biological organisation. While much of the variation in metabolic rates is explained by body size and temperature, a [...]
Faster than expected: Release of nitrogen and phosphorus from decomposing wood
Published: 2024-04-12
Subjects: Biochemistry, Forest Biology, Other Plant Sciences
● Deadwood represents globally important carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus pools. Current wood nutrient dynamics models are extensions of those developed for leaf litter decomposition. However, tissue structure and dominant decomposers differ between deadwood and litter, and recent evidence suggests that decomposer stoichiometry in combination with litter quality may affect nutrient [...]
The global protected area network does not harbor genetically diverse populations
Published: 2024-04-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Evolution, Life Sciences
Global biodiversity conservation targets include expanding protected areas and maintaining genetic diversity within species by 2030. However, the extent to which existing protected areas capture genetic diversity within species is unclear. We examined this question using a global sample of nuclear population-level genetic data comprising georeferenced genotypes from 2,513 local populations, [...]
Technique of ultra-extensive urban greening using mosses
Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Other Life Sciences
The greening of impermeable surfaces, such as rooftops and unused concrete areas, offers multifaceted benefits to urban environments (biodiversity, temperature regulation, water retention, aesthetics). An innovative "ultra-extensive" greening technique, centered on promoting moss growth, provides a lightweight, cost-effective, and low-maintenance solution. The aim of this paper is to describe [...]
Guidance framework to apply best practices in ecological data analysis: Lessons learned from building Galaxy-Ecology
Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Numerous conceptual frameworks exist for best practices in research data and analysis (e.g. Open Science and FAIR principles). In practice, there is a need for further progress to improve transparency, reproducibility, and confidence in ecology. Here, we propose a practical and operational framework for researchers and experts in ecology to achieve best practices for building analytical [...]
Effectiveness of toxic baiting for the control of canines and felines
Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Toxic baiting is used for the lethal control of mammalian predators. It is easily applied over large areas and can be highly effective, but also receives significant criticism. We conducted a meta-analysis of the efficacy of lethal baiting for the feral cat, red fox and dingo; our outcome of interest was predator survival. Our dataset contained 125 effects from 35 studies, comprising 1560 [...]
A Review of Factors Affecting Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) Welfare in Australia and Beyond
Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
With the increasingly global scale and scope of aquaculture, the need to match this development with improvements in fish welfare is a central societal and industry goal. We provide a comprehensive assessment of the farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) literature with targeted examples focusing on Atlantic salmon farmed in Tasmania, Australia. We synthesise insights from both small- and [...]
Why there are so many definitions of fitness in models
Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Biology, Computational Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Population Biology
“Fitness” quantifies the ability to survive and reproduce, but is operationalized in many different ways. Generally, short-term fitness (e.g., expected number of surviving offspring) is assigned to genotypes or phenotypes, and used to non-trivially derive longer-term operationalizations of fitness (e.g. fixation probability or sojourn time), providing insight as to which organismal [...]
A complex interplay between natural and anthropogenic factors shapes plant diversity patterns in Mediterranean coastal dunes
Published: 2024-04-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
A long history of human colonisation has profoundly altered Mediterranean coastal dunes, as well as their capacity of providing ecosystem services important for human well-being. The provisioning of these services depends on the integrity of the dune system, which is formed and maintained by coastal plant communities. Analysing the drivers of plant diversity loss is thus crucial for preserving [...]
Adaptive potential in the face of a transmissible cancer in Tasmanian devils
Published: 2024-04-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) cause catastrophic declines in wildlife populations, but 2 also generate selective pressures that may result in rapid evolutionary responses. One such EID 3 is devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) in the Tasmanian devil. DFTD is almost always fatal, 4 which likely causes strong selection for traits that reduce susceptibility to the disease, but 5 population [...]
Functional team selection: a framework for local adaptation in plants and their belowground microbiomes
Published: 2024-04-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
Plants and their microbiomes are complex adaptive systems consisting of host plants and a dynamic network of associated microorganisms inside and around plant tissues. This article introduces Functional Team Selection (FTS) as a framework to help envision and study the movement of matter, energy, and information within plant-microbiome systems. FTS embraces the fact that belowground, plants are [...]
The destructive sampling conundrum and guidelines for effective and ethical sampling of herbaria
Published: 2024-04-09
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
The use of herbaria for science and conservation is revolutionizing the discovery, exploration, and protection of biodiversity at unprecedented scopes and scales. The Global Metaherbarium—a digitally interlinked, open-access resource—is stimulating these efforts and helping to facilitate massive investigations that utilize aggregated digital derivatives of physical herbarium [...]
Searching for and Monitoring the Nests of Imperiled Grassland Birds: Recommendations from the Grand River Grasslands of Iowa
Published: 2024-04-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Grassland birds are the most imperiled avian group in North America, with greater than 50% abundance declines since 1970. Studies examining factors that impact habitat preferences, habitat selection, and reproductive success are critical to developing effective conservation and management plans for these species. These studies often involve searching for and monitoring nests in grasslands, which [...]