Preprints

There are 1033 Preprints listed.

Lipid Metabolism in Response to Cold

Thomas Enriquez, Nicholas M. Teets

Published: 2023-03-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology

Temperature directly shapes insect physiology and has a preponderant effect on life history traits. Winter conditions in temperate and polar regions are especially challenging for insects. Extremely low temperatures can indeed compromise insect survival by promoting freezing of body fluids, but mild cold temperatures above 0 °C (i.e. chilling) can also lead to complex and severe physiological [...]

The effects of preformed vitamin A and provitamin A carotenoid supplementation on tadpoles of the poison frog Phyllobates vittatus

Roberto Marquez, Rachel Arkin

Published: 2023-02-28
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Zoology

Understanding the nutritional requirements of captive animals is necessary for proper animal husbandry, however, the specific dietary requirements for many amphibian species commonly kept in captivity are unknown. Like most vertebrates, frogs cannot synthesize carotenoids or vitamin A, and must therefore obtain these essential nutrients through diet. It is unclear if amphibians can cleave [...]

How do microbes grow in nature? The role of population dynamics in microbial ecology and evolution

Justus Wilhelm Fink, Michael Manhart

Published: 2023-02-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Systems Biology

The growth of microbial populations in nature is dynamic, as the cellular physiology and environment of these populations change. Understanding the growth dynamics of these populations has wide-ranging consequences for their ecology and evolution; it may also be critical for clinical and environmental applications in which we need to promote or inhibit microbial growth. Here we review the [...]

Symbiotic status alters fungal eco-evolutionary offspring trajectories

Carlos A Aguilar-Trigueros, Franz-Sebastian Krah, William K Cornwell, et al.

Published: 2023-02-23
Subjects: Life Sciences

Across free-living organisms, the ecology and evolution of offspring morphology is shaped by interactions with biotic and abiotic environments during dispersal and early establishment in new habitats. However, the ecology and evolution of offspring morphology for symbiotic species has been largely ignored despite host-symbiont interactions being ubiquitous in all ecosystems and across all [...]

A machine learning approach to estimating the geographical origin of timber

Jakub Michal Truszkowski, Roi Maor, Raquib Bin Yousuf, et al.

Published: 2023-02-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biostatistics, Forest Management, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models

1: Determining the harvest location of timber is crucial to enforcing international regulations designed to tackle illegal logging and associated trade in forest products. However, complex supply chains obscure harvest sources, which often leaves paper-based traceability systems as the sole tool for demonstrating provenance, despite its vulnerability to fraud. Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis (SIRA) [...]

How to do biodiversity-related science communication

Jonas Geschke, Matthias C. Rillig, Katrin Böhning-Gaese, et al.

Published: 2023-02-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Communication, International and Intercultural Communication

Biodiversity is the foundation of our lives. Yet we destroy ecosystems and drive species to extinction. Human-induced biodiversity loss does not yet receive sufficient public attention, although biodiversity is fundamental for dealing with global environmental crises. Effective communication of biodiversity-related knowledge is challenging but crucial and should contribute to evidence-based [...]

Potential demographic collapse in a common perennial bunchgrass on south-facing slopes in a semi-arid grassland via dramatically reduced seedling establishment

Timothy H Parker, Alex Gerber, Erin Campbell, et al.

Published: 2023-02-20
Subjects: Biology, Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Plant Sciences, Plant Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Many perennial plants in semi-arid rangelands have experienced population declines, and understanding the ecological and demographic processes behind these declines is important to slowing or reversing them. Although anthropogenic disturbances have driven declines across many landscapes, other sorts of environmental variability, such as the differences in intensity of solar radiation with aspect, [...]

Conceptualizing microbe-plasmid communities as complex adaptive systems

Shai Pilosof

Published: 2023-02-20
Subjects: Life Sciences

Plasmids shape microbial communities' diversity, structure, and function. Nevertheless, we lack a mechanistic understanding of how community structure and dynamics emerge from local microbe-plasmid interactions and co-evolution. Addressing this gap is challenging because multiple processes operate simultaneously at multiple levels of organization. For example, immunity operates between a plasmid [...]

Extra-pair paternity, breeding density and synchrony in natural cavities versus nestboxes in two passerine birds

Irene Di Lecce, Charles Perrier, Marta Szulkin, et al.

Published: 2023-02-18
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology

Most of what is known about extra-pair paternity in hole-nesting birds derives from studies using artificial nesting sites, such as nestboxes. However, it has rarely been investigated whether inference drawn from breeding events taking place in nestboxes matches what would be observed under natural conditions, i.e. in natural cavities. We here report on a variation in promiscuity in blue tits and [...]

Nature exposure and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: A Navigation Guide systematic review with meta-analysis

Muhammad Mainuddin Patwary, Mondira Bardhan, Asma Safia Disha, et al.

Published: 2023-02-18
Subjects: Medicine and Health Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Previous reviews concluded that nature contact was an important coping strategy against poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the quality of evidence in these reviews was not sufficiently documented in terms of the risk of bias in reviewed studies. We attempted to fill this gap with a Navigation Guide systematic review and meta-analyses on the associations between nature [...]

High Survival and Percentages of Giraffe Calves Signal Areas in Need of Protection

Constance Dustin Becker, Petra Elisabeth Campbell, Leslie Ann Kadane, et al.

Published: 2023-02-17
Subjects: Life Sciences

We surveyed endangered Masai giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) at Oloirien Group Ranch (OGR) and Oloisukut Conservancy (OC) in Kenya to determine their conservation potential. Here, Maasai settlements, livestock, and predator control result in lion densities less than half that of adjacent protected areas. Using surveys and photographic mark-recapture (PMR), we annually calculated [...]

Kinematics and behaviour in fish escape responses: guidelines for conducting, analysing, and reporting experiments

Dominique Roche, Eric D Tytell, Paolo Domenici

Published: 2023-02-17
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences

Work carried out since the late 70s has provided key insights into the comparative biomechanics, kinematics, behaviour, and neurobiology of fish escape responses. With environmental change expected to affect the physiology and biomechanics of aquatic ectotherms, there is a growing interest in understanding how environmental stressors impact the swimming performance and behaviour of fishes during [...]

Prestige bias in cultural evolutionary dynamics

Saar Egozi, Yoav Ram

Published: 2023-02-16
Subjects: Evolution, Life Sciences, Social and Cultural Anthropology

A common bias in cultural transmission is success bias, where more successful individuals are more likely to be copied. Because success may be difficult to estimate, individuals may indirectly estimate success by using prestige as a proxy for success. Here, we model prestige bias as a combination of indirect success bias and influence bias, the latter meaning that the choice of a role-model [...]

Two-step CRISPR-Cas9 protocol for transposable element deletion in D. melanogaster natural populations

Miriam Merenciano, Laura Aguilera, Josefa Gonzalez

Published: 2023-02-16
Subjects: Life Sciences

This protocol generates a precise deletion of a transposable element (TE) in a natural population of Drosophila melanogaster using two steps of CRISPR-Cas9 homology-directed repair. In the first step, the TE is replaced by a fluorescent marker, while in the second CRISPR-Cas9 step the fluorescence marker is removed to avoid any possible effect of the introduced marker sequence. This two-step [...]

Heritability and age-dependent changes in genetic variation of telomere length in a wild house sparrow population

Heung Ying Janet Chik, Aaron Sibma, Maria-Elena Mannarelli, et al.

Published: 2023-02-14
Subjects: Evolution

Telomeres are a popular biomarker of senescence, as telomere dynamics are linked with survival and lifespan. However, the evolutionary potential of telomere dynamics, and the selection pattern that gives rise to senescence, are not well known. To better understand this, it is necessary to quantify genetic variation in telomere length, and how such variation changes with age. Here, we analysed a [...]

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