Preprints
There are 2847 Preprints listed.
Summer temperature – but not growing season length – influences radial growth of Salix arctica in coastal Arctic tundra
Published: 2022-03-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Arctic climate change is leading to an advance of plant phenology (the timing of life history events) with uncertain impacts on tundra ecosystems. Although the lengthening of the growing season is thought to lead to increased plant growth, we have few studies of how plant phenology change is altering tundra plant productivity. Here, we test the correspondence between 14 years of Salix arctica [...]
Overcoming language barriers in academia: machine translation tools and a vision for a multilingual future
Published: 2022-03-07
Subjects: Communication, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Having a central scientific language remains crucial for the advancement and global sharing of science. Nevertheless, maintaining one dominant language also creates barriers to accessing scientific careers and knowledge. From an interdisciplinary perspective, we describe how, when, and why to more readily make scientific literature available in multiple languages through the practice of [...]
Pattern-based identification and mapping of landscape types using multi-thematic data
Published: 2022-03-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Categorical maps of landscape types (LTs) are useful abstractions that simplify spatial and thematic complexity of natural landscapes, thus facilitating land resources management. A local landscape arises from a fusion of patterns of natural themes (such as land cover, landforms, etc.), which makes an unsupervised identification and mapping of LTs difficult. This paper introduces the integrated [...]
How to enhance data FAIRness
Published: 2022-03-04
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences
In recent years, we witnessed an increasing number of funding agencies, scientific journals and scientists agreeing that society and science benefit from open access to research data. Benefits derive mainly from increased access to knowledge for all and improved transparency in academia. However, despite the advances in open science and open data, three significant aspects still need considerable [...]
Long-term trends in seasonality and abundance of three key zooplankters in the upper San Francisco Estuary
Published: 2022-03-02
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Zooplankton provide critical food for threatened and endangered fish species in the San Francisco Estuary (estuary). Reduced food supply has been implicated in the Pelagic Organism Decline of the early 2000s and further changes in zooplankton abundance, seasonality, and distribution may continue to threaten declining fishes. While we have a wealth of monitoring data, we know little about the [...]
The Shadow of the Neolithic Revolution on Life Expectancy: A Double-Edged Sword
Published: 2022-03-01
Subjects: Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment, Anthropology, Biological and Physical Anthropology, Congenital, Hereditary, and Neonatal Diseases and Abnormalities, Diseases, Economic History, Economics, Endocrine System Diseases, Growth and Development, Health Economics, Immune System Diseases, Labor Economics, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Economics, Public Health, Regional Economics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
This research explores the persistent effect of the Neolithic Revolution on the evolution of life expectancy in the course of human history. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that the onset of the Neolithic Revolution and the associated rise in infectious diseases triggered a process of adaptation reducing mortality from infectious diseases while increasing the propensity for [...]
Female bone physiology resilience in a past Polynesian Outlier community
Published: 2022-02-28
Subjects: Anthropology, Archaeological Anthropology, Arts and Humanities, Biological and Physical Anthropology, History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology, Other Arts and Humanities, Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures, Pacific Islands Languages and Societies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Remodelling is a fundamental biological process involved in the maintenance of bone physiology and function. We know that a range of health and lifestyle factors can impact this process in living and past societies, but there is a notable gap in bone remodelling data for populations from the Pacific Islands. We conducted the first examination of femoral cortical histology in 69 individuals from [...]
Dirty Transmission Hypothesis: Increased Mutations During Horizontal Transmission Can Select for Increased Levels of Mutualism in Endosymbionts
Published: 2022-02-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
A mutualistic symbiosis occurs when organisms of different species cooperate closely for a net benefit over time. Mutualistic relationships are important for human health, food production, and ecosystem maintenance. However, they can evolve to parasitism or breakdown all together and the conditions that maintain and influence them are not completely understood. Vertical and horizontal [...]
Mountain Gorillas benefit from social distancing too: Close proximity from tourists affects gorillas sociality
Published: 2022-02-25
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Gorilla tourism supports the protection of the gorilla ecosystem, benefiting humans and wildlife populations living therein. Assessing to what degree the presence and proximity of tourists affect wildlife aids long-term benefits. Because wild animals might see human activities as stressors, we hypothesised that the increased presence and proximity of tourists leads to an immediate increase in [...]
How has bird biodiversity changed over time? A review across spatio-temporal scales
Published: 2022-02-25
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Empirical quantification of biodiversity changes remains a challenge even in well surveyed groups such as birds. This may be because the change depends on spatio-temporal scales, specifically on spatial grain (i.e. area of a sampling unit), geographic extent (i.e. size of the area of interest), temporal grain (i.e. duration of a sampling event), and temporal extent (i.e. length of the time [...]
Survival of the luckiest
Published: 2022-02-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Opposite dynamics are behind natural selection and sexual selection. While the fittest survives in natural selection, the survivor will most likely be the luckiest when both dynamics are combined.
Achieving global biodiversity goals by 2050 requires urgent and integrated actions
Published: 2022-02-25
Subjects: Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Plant Sciences
Human impacts on the Earth’s biosphere are driving the global biodiversity crisis. Governments are preparing to agree on a set of actions intended to halt the loss of biodiversity and put it on a path to recovery by 2050. We provide evidence that the proposed actions can bend the curve for biodiversity, but only if these actions are implemented urgently and in an integrated manner.
Blood parasite infection causes marginal temporary costs in juvenile birds of prey
Published: 2022-02-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Parasitology
Physiological costs from parasites arise from host colonization and defence activation and can vary according to the interactions of host and parasite traits and states. Parasite-induced costs crucially differ between stages of infection, but this is difficult to assess in wild vertebrates. To evaluate the effects of blood parasite infection in juvenile birds, we compared physiological measures [...]
Soil biota impacts on plant access to different water pools in soil
Published: 2022-02-22
Subjects: Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Aims: Soil water availability depends on the capacity of soil pores to hold it via physical forces creating gradient of availability from tightly bound water to highly mobile water. Abiotic factors directly affect the size of these pools and plant access to them. Biotic factors influence plant-soil-water relations and possibly affect soil properties and plant access to different water pools. [...]
Portrayal of the nitrogen debate in Dutch newspapers
Published: 2022-02-21
Subjects: Communication, Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
How sustainability challenges are relayed to the public is paramount to tackling such issues timely. However, there is still a lot to learn about the communication system between sustainability experts and the public. We looked at how Dutch newspapers portrayed the Dutch nitrogen debate that has been going on since 2019. 160 articles from four Dutch national daily newspapers were analyzed for [...]