Preprints
There are 1954 Preprints listed.
Is the audience gender-blind? Smaller attendance in female talks highlights imbalanced visibility in academia
Published: 2024-05-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Evolution, Gender Equity in Education, Higher Education, Inequality and Stratification, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Psychological Phenomena and Processes
Although diverse perspectives are fundamental for fostering and advancing science, power relations have limited the development, propagation of ideas, and recognition of political minority groups in academia. Gender bias is one of the most well-documented processes, leading women to drop out of their academic careers due to fewer opportunities and lower recognition. Using long-term data [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Central Pacific
Published: 2024-05-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The Central Pacific mangrove province is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology) including the marine ecoregions of the Gilbert/Ellis Islands, Marshall Islands, Phoenix/Tokelau/Northern Cook Islands, and Samoa Islands. The Central Pacific mangroves had a mapped extent in 2020 of 4.8 km2, representing less than 0.01% of the global mangrove area. The biota [...]
Clarifying ethical stances in conservation: a trolley problem thought experiment
Published: 2024-05-24
Subjects: Nature and Society Relations
Conservation policies often need to integrate scientific predictions with ethical considerations. However, different normative ethical systems at the root of conservation approaches often support different decisions, and the moral stances of stakeholders are influenced by diverse societal values and perceptions. This creates the potential for dilemmas and conflicts. Here we adapt the well-known [...]
Unveiling the temporal signatures of demographic stochasticity from populations to metacommunities
Published: 2024-05-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
The temporal stability of ecological properties tends to increase with spatial scale and levels of biological organization, which is mostly associated with deterministic processes. However, random fluctuations caused by demographic stochasticity in small populations might extend to communities and metacommunities, potentially affecting stability propagation across biological levels and spatial [...]
Light Pollution at Sea: Implications and Potential Hazards of Human Activity for Offshore Bird and Bat Movements in the Greater North Sea
Published: 2024-05-24
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management, Zoology
Human activity in the North Sea is intensifying, as emerging uses, such as offshore wind farms (OWFs) and liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals, are added to fishing, freight shipping and fossil fuel production as traditional forms of resource exploitation. The volume and scale of these additional installations are projected to increase substantially in the coming decades, which amplifies the need [...]
Behavioral flexibility is related to foraging, but not social or habitat use behaviors, in a species that is rapidly expanding its range
Published: 2024-05-24
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Psychology
The ability of other species to adapt to human modified environments is increasingly crucial because of the rapid expansion of this landscape type. Behavioral flexibility, the ability to change behavior in the face of a changing environment by packaging information and making it available to other cognitive processes, is hypothesized to be a key factor in a species’ ability to successfully adapt [...]
“Keep your Nassauvieae close…and your Mutisieae CLOSER”…Phylogenetic relations of Macrachaenium Hook.f. (Asteraceae; Mutisieae)
Published: 2024-05-24
Subjects: Biodiversity
Reanalysis of Mutisioideae nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) rpl32-trnL spacer sequences demonstrates that the monotypic genus Macrachaenium Hook.f. pertains to Mutisioideae (Asteraceae) tribe Mutisieae, in which it was classified formerly, and not Nassauvieae, in which it is classified currently. The analysis also highlights persistent [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Eastern Coral Triangle
Published: 2024-05-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Mangroves of the Eastern Coral Triangle are a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). It includes the marine ecoregions of the Bismarck Sea, Solomon Archipelago, Solomon Sea, and Southeast Papua New Guinea. The mapped extent of mangroves in this province in 2020 was 2128.9 km2, representing 1.4% of the global mangrove area. The Eastern Coral Triangle is [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the South Kuroshio
Published: 2024-05-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Mangroves of the South Kuroshio is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). It includes the marine ecoregions of the Central Kuroshio Current and South Kuroshio. In 2020, the mapped extent of the South Kuroshio mangrove province was 8.0 km2, representing less than 0.01% of the global mangrove area; the biota is characterized by 19 true mangrove species. [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Warm Temperate Northeast Pacific
Published: 2024-05-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Mangroves of the Warm Temperate Northeast Pacific is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). It includes the marine ecoregions of the South-Californian Pacific and the Gulf of California. The mapped extent of the Warm Temperate Northeast Pacific mangrove province in 2020 was 1,810.4 km², which represents 1.5% of the global mangrove area. There are three [...]
The effect of single versus successive warm summers on an intertidal community
Published: 2024-05-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
To accurately predict how organisms and ecological communities will respond to future conditions caused by climate change, we must consider the temporal dimension of environmental stressors, including the effects of repeated exposures to stress. We performed a two-year passive warming experiment in coastal British Columbia to explore the response of intertidal communities to single and successive [...]
Why wild herbivores raid crops: alternative hypotheses and their differential implications for mitigation of human wildlife conflict
Published: 2024-05-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
Wild herbivores eating up crops is a major issue in human wildlife conflict. Although there is substantial literature that identifies the conflict, tries to estimate the extent of economic loss, its consequences and also suggests some mitigation measures, many fundamental issues remain unaddressed. A number of speculations about the root causes behind the problem have been made but they haven’t [...]
A Gene-Culture Co-Evolutionary Perspective on the Puzzle of Human Twinship
Published: 2024-05-20
Subjects: Biological and Physical Anthropology, Evolution, Maternal and Child Health, Population Biology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Natural selection should favor litter sizes that optimize trade-offs between brood-size and offspring viability. Across the primate order, modal litter size is one, suggesting a deep history of selection favoring minimal litters. Humans, however---despite having the longest juvenile period and slowest life-history of all primates---still produce twin-births at appreciable rates, even though such [...]
Ten golden rules for restoration to secure resilient and just seagrass social-ecological systems
Published: 2024-05-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology, Plant Sciences
It is unequivocal that the world has lost a significant proportion of its seagrass, and although glimmers of hope exist, losses continue with many ongoing negative trajectories. First and foremost, we need to put the world on a global pathway to seagrass net gain. Conservation of what remains must be a priority, but we need to increase coverage at rates unlikely to be achieved naturally; [...]
A minimum data standard for wildlife disease studies
Published: 2024-05-19
Subjects: Animal Diseases, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Diseases, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Parasitic Diseases, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Virology, Virus Diseases
Thousands of scientists and practitioners conduct research on infectious diseases of wildlife. Rapid and comprehensive data sharing is vital to the transparency and actionability of their work, but unfortunately, most efforts designed to publically share these data are focused on pathogen determination and genetic sequence data. Other facets of existing surveillance data – particularly [...]