Preprints
There are 2217 Preprints listed.
mpmsim: An R package for simulating matrix population models
Published: 2024-09-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Matrix population models (MPMs) are widely used in ecology and evolution to explore population dynamics, including assessing management impacts and extinction risk. In comparative studies, MPMs can be used to test life history theory or investigate macro-evolutionary patterns in demographic traits. 2. Simulated MPMs can help researchers explore the effects of life cycle structure, vital rate [...]
Copy-paste augmentation improves automatic species identification in camera trap images
Published: 2024-09-24
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Effective conservation requires effective biodiversity monitoring. The pace of global biodiversity change far outstrips the ability of manual fieldwork to monitor it. Therefore, technological solutions, like camera traps, have emerged as a crucial way to meet biodiversity monitoring needs. Camera traps produce vast amounts of data and so AI is increasingly used to label images with species [...]
How can we make conferences more inclusive? Lessons from the International Ethological Congress
Published: 2024-09-24
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Despite growing awareness of the importance of researcher diversity, barriers to inclusion and equity persist in science and at academic conferences. As hosts of the 37th International Ethological Congress, “Behaviour 2023”, we studied equity, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) issues using observational and experimental behavioural data collected during question and answer (Q&A) sessions in [...]
Mega Rice (Oryza sativa) Varieties of Bangladesh: A Comprehensive Review of the Breeding History and Production of BR11, BRRI dhan28, and BRRI dhan29
Published: 2024-09-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Prior to the Green Revolution in the 1960s, rice cultivation in Bangladesh primarily relied on local landraces, which were characterized by low yield potential and undesirable agronomic traits. However, the establishment of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) in 1970 marked a significant turning point, leading to steady advancements in rice production. To date, BRRI has developed 113 [...]
Phylogenetic Diversity vs H-Index – does genetics or culture lead conservation research?
Published: 2024-09-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology
With so many species in decline it is difficult to know where conservation effort and funding should be dedicated. A common prioritization argument is species uniqueness and phylogenetic diversity, where those with unique evolutionary history are thought to be especially valuable. However, despite frequent calls for better prioritization, research interest is often idiosyncratic, pragmatic, and [...]
Do environmental fluctuations during development affect trait variation? An experimental test with salinity
Published: 2024-09-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
Climate change is a driver of extinction, with extreme events occurring more frequently. It increases both the amount and variability in environmental stress that organisms experience. In novel environments, greater intra-specific trait variation increases the opportunity for natural selection as individuals with fortuitously advantageous trait expression may thrive. Many studies focus on changes [...]
Wild vs. domestic ungulate ecosystem impacts: understanding functional differences requires greater focus on mechanisms
Published: 2024-09-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Ungulates play vital roles in ecological systems, shaping plant biomass and diversity via herbivory and impacting soil properties through trampling and nutrient deposition. As ungulate communities fluctuate across the globe, the extent to which wild ungulates and domestic livestock can play similar ecological roles is an increasingly vital - and fraught - question. Here, we synthesized the [...]
Developing Machine Learning Applications for Population Genetic Inference: Ensuring Precise Terminology and Robust Implementation
Published: 2024-09-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Machine learning applications for population genetic inference are emerging due to their potential to leverage large-scale genomic datasets, offering insights that traditional statistical methods may overlook. However, I have identified certain recurring issues. First, there is sometimes confusion between power and recall, and between the false discovery rate and one minus precision. These terms [...]
Creating a Dataset for the Detection of Flying Birds
Published: 2024-09-20
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Ornithology
We present a pipeline for collecting a dataset for the detection of flying birds in videos. We treat the creation of a dataset as an iterative task, which allows to train an inference system periodically, and to improve gradually its performance. We follow a three stage pipeline, that includes repetitive video recording, video annotation and frame sampling for training a Deep Learning detector. [...]
Reassessing a Holocene extinction: multiple lines of evidence do not support the historical presence and recent extirpation of a protected anole on the island of Anguilla
Published: 2024-09-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Genomics, Integrative Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Accurate assessment of historical species ranges is important for conservation science and management. Inaccurate historical species ranges can lead to incorrect assumptions about local extinctions, population trends, and potential sites for reintroductions. Yet, historical knowledge is often lacking for many species. Here, we examine the case of the bearded anole, Anolis pogus, which has long [...]
Making sense of the virome in light of evolution and ecology
Published: 2024-09-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Understanding the patterns and drivers of viral prevalence and abundance is of key importance for understanding pathogen emergence. Over the last decade, metagenomic sequencing has exponentially expanded our knowledge of the diversity and evolution of viruses associated with all domains of life. However, as most of these ‘virome’ studies are primarily descriptive, our understanding of the [...]
Spatial connectivity through mountains and deserts drove South American scorpion's dispersal
Published: 2024-09-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
We inferred the geographic dispersal routes and the environmental conditions that shaped the ~30-million-years historical biogeography of Brachistosternus scorpions in South America. We evaluated the role that altitude and aridity had on the geographic distance that each species dispersed from the location of the genus common ancestor. Based on previous studies, we evaluated the hypothesis [...]
Demographic expansion and panmixia in a St. Martin endemic, Anolis pogus, coincides with the decline of a competitor
Published: 2024-09-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genomics, Population Biology, Zoology
Understanding patterns of differentiation at microgeographic scales can enhance our understanding of evolutionary dynamics and lead to the development of effective conservation strategies. In particular, high levels of landscape heterogeneity can strongly influence species abundances, genetic structure, and demographic trends. The bearded anole, Anolis pogus, is endemic to the topographically [...]
Does heat tolerance vary with rates of oxygen production in photosymbiotic cnidarians?
Published: 2024-09-19
Subjects: Life Sciences
Oxygen acquisition and delivery to tissues is believed to be a key factor in heat tolerance, but testing this link has been challenging due to methodological limitations in separating processes related to oxygen acquisition and oxygen delivery. In this study, we altered tissue oxygenation by manipulating light intensity using cnidarians that host endosymbiotic algae as a model. We first verified [...]
Growth decline in European beech associated with temperature-driven increase in reproductive allocation
Published: 2024-09-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Climate change is impacting forests in complex ways, with indirect effects arising from interactions between tree growth and reproduction often overlooked. Our 43-year study of European beech (Fagus sylvatica), showed that rising summer temperatures since 2005 have led to more frequent seed production events. This shift increases reproductive effort but depletes the trees' stored resources due to [...]