Preprints
There are 1692 Preprints listed.
Interplay of abiotic, biotic, and individual factors in shaping individual growth and demography in a high-elevation common toad population
Published: 2024-04-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
1. Vital rates of individuals in natural populations, such as survival and breeding probabilities, can be affected by abiotic (i.e. environmental conditions), biotic (e.g. population density), and individual factors (i.e. individual traits). Many studies often consider the direct effects of one or two of these sources of vital-rate variations, but taking them all into account might reveal [...]
Beyond the buzz: A review of the prospects of replacing meat consumption with insect-based foods
Published: 2024-04-04
Subjects: Agriculture, Food Science, Nutrition
The substantial environmental footprint of meat production means that dietary shifts are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Insects may offer one alternative. However, to deliver genuine benefits for sustainability of the food system, insects must first be widely accepted and consumed by the general public. In this review, we examine the necessary stages that need to be fulfilled before [...]
Have the environmental benefits of insect farming been overstated? A critical review
Published: 2024-04-04
Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics, Agriculture, Food Science
Humanity's food system has an immense environmental impact, and insects have been frequently proposed as a more environmentally sustainable option. The industrialised farming of insects for livestock feed and human food has attracted the attention of industry, policymakers, and the scientific community. However, many of the benefits commonly mentioned by companies and proponents of insect farming [...]
Datathons: fostering equitability in data reuse in ecology
Published: 2024-04-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Genetics, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Approaches to rapidly collect global biodiversity data are increasingly important, but biodiversity blindspots persist. We organized a three-day Datathon event to improve the openness of local biodiversity data, and facilitate data reuse by local researchers. The first Datathon, organized among microbial ecologists in Uruguay and Argentina assembled the largest microbiome dataset in the region to [...]
Acceleration and demographic rates behind bird decline in North America
Published: 2024-04-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Acceleration of human activities over the past century might have caused a corresponding acceleration in the decline of abundance of species, but this has not been empirically assessed. Further, the temporal dynamics of abundance arises from a complex interaction between recruitment and loss of individuals, which remains unexplored across large spatial scales. We address these gaps by examining [...]
Ecology and Conservation of Diospyros crumenata (Ebenaceae), a Critically Endangered Tree of the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot
Published: 2024-04-03
Subjects: Life Sciences
Diospyros crumenata is an IUCN- critically endangered tree species that belongs to the Ebenaceae family and is found in the Western Ghats region. There is limited information about this tree in floristic literature and herbaria, so we conducted extensive forest trips to the Western Ghats to locate its population and study its ecology. Unfortunately, this threatened tree is facing severe threats [...]
No place for phylogeny in structuring a sandy coastal plain community
Published: 2024-04-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Although inference of assembly processes from phylogenetic patterns has become ubiquitous in community ecology, surprisingly few studies simultaneously test assumptions of such an approach and integrate over spatial scales and plant life stages. Here we investigate the roles of phylogeny, functional traits, and abiotic conditions in the spatial structuring of a sandy coastal plain community using [...]
Cladistic species definitions can lead to under-representation of biodiversity from adaptive radiations.
Published: 2024-03-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
Many species are paraphyletic, but current taxonomic practices often do not recognise this, and attempts are made to apply a monophyletic species concept. While allowing the recognition of ecomorphologically equivalent, or even phenotypically indistinguishable allopatric taxa as species, this often leads to combining distinctive local forms (such as cave-adapted populations) or even whole [...]
When to use species richness estimators to infer about diversity losses or gains
Published: 2024-03-29
Subjects: Biodiversity
Children adjust behavior in novel social environments to reflect local cooperative norms inferred from brief exposure
Published: 2024-03-29
Subjects: Anthropology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Stark intergroup variation in prosocial behavior, as elicited with economic experiments, is evident even though humans are highly mobile. Conformity to local norms has been posited to play an integral role in the maintenance of this variation. Experiments suggest that adults indeed rapidly infer pro- and antisocial norms in a new or changed social environment and adjust their behavior to reflect [...]
Pollination across the diel cycle: a global meta-analysis
Published: 2024-03-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The daily transition between day and night, known as the diel cycle, is characterised by significant shifts in environmental conditions and biological activity, both of which can affect crucial ecosystem functions like pollination. Yet, despite over six decades of research into whether plant reproductive success varies between day and night, consensus remains elusive. We compiled and analysed the [...]
Equivalence between short- and long-distance dispersal in individual animal movement
Published: 2024-03-29
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Random walks (RW) provide a useful modelling framework for the movement of animals at an individual level. If the RW is uncorrelated and unbiased such that the direction of movement is completely random, the dispersal is characterised by the statistical properties of the probability distribution of step lengths, or the dispersal kernel. Whether an individual exhibits short-or long-distance [...]
Incomplete lineage sorting and hybridization underlie of tree discordance in Petunia and related genera (Petunieae, Solanaceae)
Published: 2024-03-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Botany, Genomics
Despite the overarching history of species divergence, phylogenetic studies often reveal distinct topologies across regions of the genome. The sources of these gene tree discordances are variable, but incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) and hybridization are among those with the most biological importance. Petunia serves as a classic system for studying hybridization in the wild. While field studies [...]
Lumpfish, Cyclopterus lumpus, distribution in the Gulf of Maine, USA: observations from fisheries independent and dependent catch data
Published: 2024-03-29
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Population Biology
The Gulf of Maine (GoM) is one of the fastest-warming parts of the world’s oceans. Some species’ distributional shifts have already been documented, especially for commercially-important species. Less is known about species that are not currently exploited but may become so in the future. As a case study into these issues, we focus on lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) because of the recognized and [...]
Patterns in tern trophic diversity in a region experiencing rapid climate change
Published: 2024-03-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
Foraging plasticity provides a mechanism for long-lived species to adapt to rapidly changing environments and, when individuals vary in their plasticity, can drive changes in trophic diversity. We use chick provisioning data and stable isotope values of blood cells and plasma to test for drivers of trophic diversity in the diet of common terns (Sterna hirundo) and Arctic terns (Sterna paradisaea) [...]