Preprints

There are 1692 Preprints listed.

Blindingly Transparent – Anonymity in an Era of Openness: A Reply to Cardini

Shinichi Nakagawa, Malgorzata Lagisz

Published: 2024-07-11
Subjects: Life Sciences

We welcome and appreciate the comment from Cardini [1] on our “ABC of academic writing” [2]. Cardini rightly points out that some of our advice could lead to revealing one’s identity inadvertently, jeopardising the double-blind peer review process. Importantly, there is a wealth of evidence that the effectiveness of double-blind review can prevent biases resulting from traditional single-blind [...]

Ancestral state reconstruction of phenotypic characters

Liam J. Revell

Published: 2024-07-09
Subjects: Evolution

Ancestral state reconstruction is a phylogenetic comparative method that involves estimating the unknown trait values of hypothetical ancestral taxa at internal nodes of a phylogenetic tree. Ancestral state reconstruction has long been, and continues to remain, among the most popular analyses in phylogenetic comparative research. In this review, I illustrate the theory and practice of ancestral [...]

Social ageing varies within a population of bottlenose whales

Sam Froman Walmsley, Laura J Feyrer, Claire Girard, et al.

Published: 2024-07-08
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Evolution, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

How social behaviour changes as individuals age has important consequences for the health and function of both human and non-human societies. However, the extent of inter-individual variation in social ageing has been underappreciated, especially in natural populations of animals. Here, we leverage a photo-identification dataset spanning 35 years to examine social ageing in an Endangered [...]

The Genomics for Australian Plants (GAP) framework initiative – developing genomic resources for understanding the evolution and conservation of the Australian flora.

Lalita Simpson, David Cantrill, Margaret Byrne, et al.

Published: 2024-07-08
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Genomics

The generation and analysis of genome-scale data—genomics—is driving a rapid increase in plant biodiversity knowledge. However, the speed and complexity of technological advance in genomics presents challenges for its widescale use in evolutionary and conservation biology. Here, we introduce and describe a national-scale collaboration conceived to build genomic resources and capability for [...]

Variation in the diversity of Sotalia (Cetacea:Delphinidae) dolphin whistle repertoires at a continental scale

Gabriel Melo-Santos, Sam Froman Walmsley, Volker B. Deecke, et al.

Published: 2024-07-08
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Social and Behavioral Sciences

1. While cetaceans are known to produce large and complex acoustic repertoires, the challenges of exhaustively sampling sounds at sea and counting relevant signals has precluded an understanding of their true repertoire diversity. 2. Here we quantify and compare the whistle repertoires of 16 populations in the genus Sotalia, belonging to two sister species, the Guiana dolphin (Sotalia [...]

A Regulatory Mirage: Non-compliance with Regulatory Requirements in Australian Human-induced Regeneration Projects

Andrew Macintosh, Megan Catherine Evans, Don Butler, et al.

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The boom-and-bust nature of rangeland ecosystems makes them ill-suited to nature-based solution (NbS) carbon offset projects involving sequestration in vegetation and soils. The variability in these systems makes it difficult to determine whether observed stock changes are attributable to the project activities, creating additionality risks. The low and variable rainfall in rangelands also means [...]

Detection of energetic equivalence depends on food web architecture and estimators of energy use

Poppy Joaquina Romera, Benoit Gauzens, Ana Carolina Antunes, et al.

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Ecologists have long debated the universality of the energetic equivalence rule (EER), which posits that population energy use should be invariant with average body size due to negative size–density scaling. We explored size–density and size–energy use scaling across 183 geographically–distributed soil invertebrate food webs to investigate the universality of these fundamental EER assumptions. [...]

Linguistic evolution in time and space: addressing the methodological challenges

Chundra Cathcart, Balthasar Bickel

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences

One of the most specific features of the human language faculty is its intrinsic spatio-temporal dynamic, as reflected in languages' characteristic mode of extra-genomic evolution. Understanding what has emerged in the hominin lineage therefore requires capturing this dynamic and the diversity of languages and structures that it generates. In this chapter, we review the state of the art in [...]

Microbial functional diversity and redundancy: moving forward

Pierre Ramond, Pierre Galand, Ramiro Logares

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Microbiology

Microbial functional ecology is expanding as we can now measure the traits of wild microbes that affect ecosystem functioning. Here, we review techniques and advances that could be the bedrock for a unified framework to study microbial functions. We then explore the technical, ecological, and evolutionary processes that could explain environmental patterns of microbial functional diversity and [...]

Physical Trait Variation in Hass Avocados Across Different Fruit Sizes

Juan Opazo, Gonzalo Riadi

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Agriculture, Life Sciences

Hass avocados are globally consumed, nutrient-rich fruits. While current analyses mainly benefit the industry, there is a need for research focused on consumer advantages. Understanding the statistical relationships between the physical characteristics of avocados, particularly pulp content, can help consumers make better purchasing decisions. This study examines the physical attributes of Hass [...]

Strong small-scale differentiation but no cryptic species within the two isopod species Asellus aquaticus and Proasellus coxalis in a restored urban river system (Emscher, Germany)

Martina Weiss, Armin W. Lorenz, Christian K. Feld, et al.

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Zoology

Worldwide, humans have strongly altered river networks. Key changes resulted in modified hydromorphology, poor habitat quality and availability, migration barriers, and pollution. Restoration measures aim at mitigating anthropogenic stressors and to restore connectivity, but the biological success of the measures is not guaranteed. Analyzing genetic diversity and population structure of target [...]

The economic risk of the losses in pest control as frogs decline

Karoline Ceron, Diego José Santana, Mathias Mistretta Pires

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Crop pests threaten agricultural productivity, causing significant economic losses and food security issues. Although various control methods exist, pesticide reliance raises health and environmental concerns. In this sense, the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a favored approach that minimizes pesticide use while incorporating diverse pest control methods. A key aspect of IPM is biological [...]

Topoclimate buffers floristic diversity from macroclimate in temperate mountain forests.

Jeremy Borderieux, Emiel De Lombaerde, Karen De Pauw, et al.

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Microclimates strongly influence the composition and diversity of forest plant communities. Recent studies have highlighted the role of tree canopies in shaping understory thermal conditions at small spatial scales, especially in lowland forests. In mountain forests, however, the influence of topography in environmental conditions (e.g. topoclimate) is ought to also influence plants’ perceived [...]

Analysis of ecologically relevant sea ice and ocean variables for the Southern Ocean using a high-resolution model to inform ecosystem studies

Denisse Fierro Arcos, Stuart Corney, Amelie Meyer, et al.

Published: 2024-06-28
Subjects: Marine Biology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology

Southern Ocean organisms are uniquely adapted to the extreme environmental conditions that characterise this region, making them especially vulnerable to climate change. Alterations to the physical environment have already been linked to alterations in the structure and functioning of entire ecosystems, and ecological disruptions are expected to continue to occur. Although our understanding of [...]

From eggs to adulthood: sustained effects of early developmental temperature and corticosterone exposure on physiology and body size in an Australian lizard

Ondi Crino, Kristoffer H Wild, Christopher R. Friesen, et al.

Published: 2024-06-28
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

As global temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, developing animals may be increasingly exposed to elevated temperatures. Additionally, elevated temperatures could affect developing animals through indirect effects such as increased exposure to maternal glucocorticoid hormones. Exposure to elevated levels of glucocorticoids during development can have immediate and sustained effects [...]

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