Preprints
There are 1997 Preprints listed.
Improving our understanding of adaptive evolution by addressing multi-generational non-genetic responses
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Populations that face abrupt environmental change reducing their fitness can recover by adaptive genetic evolution over tens to hundreds of generations, but their immediate responses often involve non-genetic mechanisms. When such non-genetic responses span multiple generations, their dynamics may be difficult to distinguish from those of genetic evolution. We here argue that focusing research on [...]
No, ecosystems do not have intrinsic value! A response to the Conguillío Statement
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. The Conguillío Statement on the alleged values and responsibilities of ecologists claims that ecosystems are intrinsically valuable. This is a common claim by ecologists and the authors of the Conguillío Statement probably view it as uncontroversial. 2. Ecologists want to invoke the concept of intrinsic value because it seems to cover more of nature than instrumental value. However, [...]
Impacts of plant invasions on tick-borne disease risk
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Under global change, plant invasions may alter tick-borne disease (TBD) transmission. The direction and magnitude of changes in TBD risk resulting from invasions remain poorly understood because research has often been species-specific or insufficient to quantify mechanisms. In this overview, we describe how invasive plant functional traits can mediate microclimates, how tick survival and [...]
Does post-natal parental care influence cognitive development in a social gecko?
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
How cognition evolved remains a debated “hot-topic” in the field of animal cognition. Current hypotheses link variation in sociality, ecology, and more generally, environmental challenges to differences in cognitive development, both between as well as within species. Research supporting the Social Intelligence Hypothesis, which states that cognition evolved to deal with social challenges, is [...]
Communities and Ecosystems
Published: 2025-01-03
Subjects: Life Sciences
Communities and ecosystems are two related and contested concepts in ecology. Despite their longevity, three unanswered philosophical questions apply to both concepts. First, "what are they?" Both concepts have multiple definitions and little agreement among ecologists about which is correct or which is most useful. Second, "how are they individuated?" Working from any particular definition, how [...]
Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals: Techniques, Challenges, and Prospects
Published: 2025-01-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Heavy metals, characterized by their high atomic mass and density, can pose significant risks to soil, water, plants, and human health. Contamination sources include manufacturing activities, mining, farming practices, and improper waste management. Metals such as arsenic, mercury, lead, chromium, and cadmium are most toxic with health consequences that can result from organ dysfunction to [...]
Selection on Picea mariana shifts with climate and evolutionary response to climate change is largely unconstrained by phenotypic integration
Published: 2024-12-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
The local persistence of long-lived organisms is at risk as climate change drives a rapid shift in selection regimes world-wide. Although adaptive evolution is one of the main mechanisms by which populations persist in changing environments, we have little information regarding how selection regimes will shift in response to continued climate change, nor on the potential for trees to evolve [...]
Interannual variability modulates Harrison’s rule between cymothoid isopod and their prawn host: Insights from a long-term stream study
Published: 2024-12-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Host body size can influence the evolution of parasite body size in many host-parasite associations, a hypothesis called Harrison’s rule (HR). However, this pattern has not always been consistently observed, with some studies finding no association between host and parasite size. Moreover, other host-related factors (e.g., sex, immunity) and environmental changes can mediate this relationship. [...]
Automated single species identification in camera trap images: architecture choice, training strategies, and the interpretation of performance metrics
Published: 2024-12-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Automated species detection in camera trap images with deep learning techniques has become common in ecological monitoring. Camera trap image data sets are a challenging task, because of modest data set size, high class imbalance owing to low prevalence of the species of interest, and image backgrounds that vary within and between cameras. Strategies to tackle these difficulties can be adopted at [...]
GUBIC: the global urban biological invasions compendium for plants
Published: 2024-12-27
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Urban areas are foci for the introduction of non-native plant species, and they often act as launching sites for invasions into the wider environment. Although interest in biological invasions in urban areas is growing rapidly, and the extent and complexity of problems associated with invasions in these systems have increased, data on the composition and numbers of non-native plants in [...]
Comparative Life-Cycle Analyses Reveal Interacting Climatic and Biotic Drivers of Population Responses to Climate Change
Published: 2024-12-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Responses of natural populations to climate change are driven by how multiple climatic and biotic factors affect survival and reproduction, and ultimately shape population dynamics. Yet, we lack a general understanding of the role of such mechanisms in moderating climate-change impacts across different species. Here, we synthesize how the joint effects of climate and biotic interactions on [...]
Effects of stem and pith eccentricity on the accuracy of basal area increment estimations
Published: 2024-12-23
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Accurate tree growth quantification is crucial in ecology to assess tree growth. Basal area increment (BAI) is typically calculated from tree rings on increment cores, assuming trees are perfect circles with centered piths. However, trees often have pith offset and stem out-of-roundness, leading to estimation errors. Yet, we do not know how much estimation error results from these eccentricities. [...]
Dynamic parental roles revealed by fine-scale hunting behaviour with concurrent pair tracking in the wild
Published: 2024-12-23
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Zoology
Parental cooperation in offspring care is essential for offspring survival in species with extended biparental care. Yet, the mechanisms through which each parent’s foraging skills and performance shape both their own and their partner’s contributions to offspring rearing, particularly in natural conditions, remain poorly understood. Using high-resolution GPS and accelerometer data, we [...]
Early environmental conditions do not impact behavioural flexibility in an invasive and non-invasive lizard species
Published: 2024-12-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Behavioural flexibility, the ability to adjust behaviour adaptively in response to internal or external changes, is expected to be crucial for animals adapting to environmental fluctuations. However, the conditions experienced during early development can profoundly impact behavioural flexibility making it unclear how populations will respond to novel circumstances. Stressful situations faced by [...]
The impacts of pesticide exposure on fish conspecific interactions: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Published: 2024-12-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
The production of chemical pesticides poses a critical threat to aquatic ecosystems worldwide, with adverse effects evident even at sublethal concentrations. Historically, ecotoxicologists have ignored an organism’s social context when investigating the effects of pesticide exposure and, instead, have tended to focus on individual-level impacts. Recently, however, there has been a growing [...]