Preprints
There are 3443 Preprints listed.
Marine cleaning mutualisms provide new insights in biological market dynamics
Published: 2023-01-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Most mutually beneficial social interactions (cooperation within species, mutualism between species) involve some degree of partner choice. In an analogy to economic theory as applied to human trading practices, biological market theory (BMT) focusses on how partner choice affects payoff distributions among non-human traders. BMT has inspired a great diversity of research, including research on [...]
Why do some fish grow faster than others?
Published: 2023-01-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Physiology
All animals must acquire food to grow, but there is a vast diversity in how different species and even different individuals approach and achieve this task. Individuals within a species appear to fall along a bold-shy continuum, whereby some fish acquire food aggressively and with seemingly high risk, while others appear more submissive and opportunistic. Greater food consumption generally [...]
Demographic signals of population decline and time to extinction in a seasonal, density-dependent model
Published: 2023-01-20
Subjects: Population Biology
Nearly all wild populations live in seasonal environments in which they experience regular fluctuations in environmental conditions that drive population dynamics. Recent empirical evidence from experimental populations of Drosophila suggests that demographic signals inherent in the counts of seasonal populations, including reproduction and survival, can indicate when in the annual cycle habitat [...]
Sex-specific covariation between exploratory behavior and natal dispersal strategies in a natural cooperative breeding passerine population
Published: 2023-01-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Natal dispersal is a major life-history strategy that has pervasive consequences on the spatial and genetic structure of populations. Between-individual variation in personality traits is increasingly recognized as an important determinant of natal dispersal via ‘personality-dependent dispersal’. However, few studies have investigated the importance of personalities in the context of delayed [...]
Psychological and Cultural Factors Influencing Antibiotic Prescription
Published: 2023-01-20
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Psychiatry and Psychology
Humans have been giving a selective advantage to antibiotic-resistant bacteria worldwide by inundating the environment with antimicrobials for about one century. As a result, the efficacy of antibiotics has been impaired. Antibiotic resistance is a public health problem, responsible for increases in mortality and extended stays at hospitals. Hospitals and other clinical settings have implemented [...]
Beta diversity of restored river dike grasslands is strongly influenced by uncontrolled spatio-temporal variability
Published: 2023-01-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Spatio-temporal dynamics of biodiversity are a key measure when monitoring restoration success. Balanced species turnover is aimed at because it increases overall biodiversity and improves ecosystem stability and multifunctionality. For predictive restoration, it is important to analyse spatial beta diversity and to identify its drivers like site characteristics but also uncontrolled factors [...]
A process-based framework for quantifying sampling completeness of species interaction networks
Published: 2023-01-19
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring
Species interaction networks underpin ecosystem function and persistence, but their study is hindered by lack of empirical knowledge about interactions. Many interactions occur in nature that have not been observed or recorded. We develop a process-based framework for simulating species interaction accumulation curves that accounts for spatiotemporal variation species interaction networks. We do [...]
Developmental environments do not affect thermal physiological traits in reptiles: An experimental test and meta-analysis
Published: 2023-01-18
Subjects: Evolution, Integrative Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
On a global scale, organisms face significant challenges due to climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. In many ectotherms, developmental and physiological processes are sensitive to changes in temperature and resources. Developmental plasticity in thermal physiology may provide adaptive advantages to environmental extremes if early environmental conditions are predictive of late-life [...]
Evolutionary Game Theory and the Adaptive Dynamics Approach: Adaptation where Individuals Interact
Published: 2023-01-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Evolutionary game theory and the adaptive dynamics approach have made invaluable contributions to understand how gradual evolution leads to adaptation when individuals interact. Here, we review some of the basic tools that have come out of these contributions to model the evolution of quantitative traits in complex populations. We collect together mathematical expressions that describe [...]
Moving beyond heritability in the search for coral adaptive potential
Published: 2023-01-17
Subjects: Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Global environmental change is happening at unprecedented rates. Coral reefs are among the ecosystems most threatened by global change. For wild populations to persist, they must adapt. Knowledge shortfalls about corals’ complex ecological and evolutionary dynamics, however, stymie predictions about potential adaptation to future conditions. Here, we review adaptation through the lens of [...]
Anti-predator defenses are linked with high levels of genetic differentiation in frogs
Published: 2023-01-15
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Predator-prey interactions have been suggested as drivers of diversity in different lineages, and the presence of anti-predator defences in some clades is linked to higher rates of diversification. Warning signals are some of the most widespread defenses in the animal world, and there is evidence of higher diversification rates in aposematic lineages. The mechanisms behind such species richness, [...]
The Ecological Relevance of Critical Thermal Maxima Methodology (CTM) for Fishes
Published: 2023-01-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Critical thermal maxima methodology (CTM) has been used to infer acute upper thermal tolerance in fishes since the 1950s, yet its ecological relevance remains debated. Here, we synthesize evidence to identify methodological concerns and common misconceptions that have limited the interpretation of CTmax (value for an individual fish during one trial) in ecological and evolutionary studies of [...]
Metabolic division of labor in social insects
Published: 2023-01-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Social insects are known for reproductive and behavioral division of labor, but little attention has been paid to metabolic forms of division of labor. Metabolic division of labor is the partitioning of complementary metabolic tasks between individuals, and it is widespread in social insects. We define two forms of metabolic division of labor, homosynergetic and heterosynergetic, we pinpoint [...]
Social regulation of reproduction: control or signal?
Published: 2023-01-13
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Traditionally, dominant breeders have been considered to be able to control the reproduction of other individuals in multimember groups that have high variance in reproductive success/reproductive skew (e.g., forced sterility/coercion of conspecifics in eusocial animals; sex-change suppression in sequential hermaphrodites). These actions are typically presented as active impositions by [...]
Analyzing health of forcibly displaced communities through an integrated ecological lens
Published: 2023-01-11
Subjects: Demography, Population, and Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Public Health, International Public Health, Medicine and Health, Public Health
Healthcare among forcibly displaced persons is frequently driven by siloed approaches. Aspects of the built environment, social factors, and the bi-directional relationship between the changing ecosystem and residents are often ignored in health policy design and implementation. While recognizing factors that create a preference for siloed approaches and appreciating the work of humanitarian [...]