Preprints
There are 1649 Preprints listed.
Sedimentary ancient DNA reveals Neolithic pastoralism and plant community interactions at Southern European high altitudes
Published: 2024-06-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
The Neolithization process introduced significant ecological impacts, especially in Mediterranean mountain areas. We generated a comprehensive sedimentary ancient DNA record from the central Pyrenees, spanning 12.2 to 1.3 ka BP, revealing the earliest continuous presence of sheep (6.5 ka BP) and cattle (5.9 ka BP) in alpine southern Europe. This evidence suggests pastoralism nearly concurred with [...]
Influence of intermittent stream dynamics on predator-prey interactions
Published: 2024-06-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams are dynamic ecosystems characterized by periodic interruptions in flow, leading to temporary or complete absence of water. These dynamics create a mosaic of isolated pools, reducing habitat volume and connectivity, and impacting resource availability and predation levels. This study addresses three key questions: (i) Do species composition and [...]
The "Conhecimento Brasil" Program neglects the structural problems of Brazilian science and fails to offer a solution to the brain drain
Published: 2024-06-12
Subjects: Science and Technology Studies
We, a group of Brazilian scientists residing abroad in diverse career stages, are writing in response to CNPq’s recent announcement of the "Talent Repatriation Program - Conhecimento Brasil," (see Morimoto 2024). We discuss our impressions and suggestions to align the proposal with what the program aims to achieve.
Trophic generalism in the winter moth: a model system for phenological mismatch
Published: 2024-06-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
Climate change has the potential to disrupt phenological synchrony among interacting species that vary in their phenological sensitivity to temperature. The phenological synchrony observed between winter moth Operophtera brumata caterpillars and oak leafing in spring has become an emblematic test case of this phenomenon, with caterpillars seemingly advancing their phenology more than their [...]
Gaining insights into the life-history strategies of tropical tree species from a large urban inventory dataset
Published: 2024-06-11
Subjects: Forest Biology, Forest Management, Horticulture, Integrative Biology, Plant Biology, Population Biology
Trees are important ecosystem service providers that improve the physical environment and human experience in cities throughout the world. Since the ecosystem services and maintenance requirements of urban trees change as they grow in time, predictive models of tree growth rates are useful to forecast societal benefits and maintenance costs over a tree’s lifetime. However, many models to date are [...]
Making use of spatially biased variables in ecosystem condition accounting – a GIS based workflow
Published: 2024-06-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring
Ecosystem Condition Accounts (ECA) should reflect the integrity or quality of all nature inside the scope of the account, and therefore rely on spatially representative indicators for condition. All ECAs are subject to data constraints in some way. Therefore, being able to make use of spatially biased data sets would be very valuable. For national ECAs, modelling approaches can in some cases be [...]
Behavioral flexibility is similar in two closely related species where only one is rapidly expanding its geographic range
Published: 2024-06-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Comparative Psychology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Human modified environments are rapidly increasing, which puts other species in the precarious position of either adapting to a new area or, if they are not able to adapt, shifting their range to a more suitable environment. It is generally thought that behavioral flexibility, the ability to change behavior when circumstances change, plays an important role in the ability of a species to rapidly [...]
Global metrics for terrestrial biodiversity
Published: 2024-06-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation
Biodiversity metrics are increasingly in demand for informing government, businesses, and civil society decisions. However, while there are many metrics available, it is not always clear to end-users how they differ or for what purpose they are best suited. This confusion undermines uptake. Here, we seek to clarify these questions by reviewing and presenting a database of 573 biodiversity-related [...]
Tail-dependence of masting synchrony results in continent-wide seed scarcity
Published: 2024-06-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Spatial synchrony may be tail-dependent, meaning it is stronger for peaks rather than troughs, or vice versa. High interannual variation in seed production in perennial plants, called masting, can be synchronized at subcontinental scales, triggering extensive resource pulses or famines. We used data from 99 populations of European beech (\emph{Fagus sylvatica}) to examine whether masting [...]
Testing for efficacy in four measures of demographic buffering
Published: 2024-06-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Understanding population responses to variable environments is central to much of current research in population ecology and conservation biology. Environmental variability, a key component of global climate change, increases the extinction risk of species across the tree of life. Therefore, quantifying the sensitivity of populations to environmental variability is timely in the face of global [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Western Indian Ocean
Published: 2024-06-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
‘Mangroves of the Western Indian Ocean’ is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). This province spans 10 countries and includes the following marine ecoregions: Cargados Carajos/Tromelin Island, Delagoa, Mascarene Islands, Seychelles, Southeast Madagascar, East African Coral Coast, Northern Monsoon Current Coast, Bight of Sofala/Swamp [...]
Climate-mediated hybridization and the future of Andean forests
Published: 2024-06-05
Subjects: Life Sciences
The tropical Andes face unprecedented warming and shifting precipitation patterns due to climate change and land-use alteration, challenging the futures of Andean forests. During the Quaternary, many Andean trees responded to climate change through upslope migrations, but while there is evidence of ongoing upslope migrations in many species, they are at rates far below what is need to remain in [...]
Supporting study registration to reduce research waste
Published: 2024-06-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Research suffers from many inefficiencies. These lead to much research being avoidably wasted, with no or limited value to the end user (e.g. an estimated 82-89% of ecological research, and 85% of medical research). Here, we argue that the quality and impact of ecological research could be drastically improved by registration: pre-registration, and registered reports. However, without a [...]
IPDToolkit: An R package for simulation and Bayesian analysis of iterated prisoner’s dilemma game-play under third-party arbitration
Published: 2024-06-04
Subjects: Anthropology, Political Science, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recently, researchers have begun studying the role that third-party arbitration may play in the evolution of cooperation. Using the iterated prisoner’s dilemma (IPD), they show that arbitration can mitigate the negative effects of perception errors on the stability of cooperative strategies. Open questions, both theoretical and empirical, however, remain. To promote research on the role of [...]
Hunter-Gatherer Sociality and the Origins of Human Normative Thinking
Published: 2024-06-03
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Reconstructing the origin and evolution of culturally transmitted norms and institutions in the hominin lineage since our split from a common ancestry with African apes is a daunting task. By investigating the social structures of extant simple hunter-gatherers, as well as the evidence of extensive social networks and long-distance trade in early modern humans, we believe that regulation of [...]