Preprints
There are 1957 Preprints listed.
Why are trees hollow? Termites, microbes, and tree internal stem damage in a tropical savanna
Published: 2024-02-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Wood plays a vital role in the terrestrial carbon cycle, serving as a significant carbon store that is then released back to the atmosphere during decomposition. Decomposition has largely been studied in fallen and standing deadwood; however, decomposition can occur within living trees via hollowing by wood-feeding termites and microbial heart rot. Internal stem damage is difficult to measure, [...]
The ecology of ageing in wild societies: linking age structure and social behaviour
Published: 2024-02-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
The age of individuals has consequences not only for their fitness and behaviour, but also for the functioning of the groups they form. Because social behaviour often changes with age, population age structure is expected to shape the social organisation, the social environments individuals experience, and the operation of social processes within populations. Although research has explored [...]
Cryptic species and hybridisation in corals: challenges and opportunities for conservation and restoration
Published: 2024-02-14
Subjects: Genomics, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The conservation and management of coral reef ecosystems will benefit from accurate assessments of reef-building coral species diversity. However, the true diversity of corals may be obfuscated by cryptic yet genetically distinct groups, which are likely more pervasive than currently recognised. Here, we investigate the prevalence of cryptic coral groups and assess evidence for their permeability [...]
Probing the functional significance of wild animal microbiomes using omics data
Published: 2024-02-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Host-associated microbiomes are thought to play a key role in host physiology and fitness, but this conclusion mainly derives from studies of a handful of animal models and humans. To test the generality of this conclusion, studies in non-model and wild animals are needed. However, whilst microbiome taxonomic diversity has recently received much attention, characterization of its functional [...]
Smartphones as a new tool for biodiversity research
Published: 2024-02-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Rangewide occupancy of a flagship species, the California Gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica) in southern California: habitat associations and recovery from wildfire
Published: 2024-02-12
Subjects: Biodiversity
The California Gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica), a federally threatened species, is a flagship species for regional conservation planning in southern California (USA). An inhabitant of coastal sage scrub vegetation, the gnatcatcher has declined in response to habitat loss and fragmentation, exacerbated by catastrophic wildfires. We documented the status of gnatcatchers throughout their [...]
Japanese mayfly family classification with a vision transformer model
Published: 2024-02-10
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biodiversity, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Engineering, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Benthic macroinvertebrates are a frequently used indicator group for biomonitoring and biological assessment of river ecosystems. However, their taxonomic identification is laborious and requires special expertise. In this study, we aimed to assess the capability of a vision transformer (ViT) model for family-level identification of mayflies (order Ephemeroptera). Specifically, we focused on [...]
Assessing the risk of climate maladaptation for Canadian polar bears
Published: 2024-02-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Abstract The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world, threatening the persistence of Arctic species. It is uncertain if Arctic wildlife will have sufficient time to adapt to such rapidly warming environments. We used genetic forecasting to measure the risk of maladaptation to warming temperatures and sea ice loss in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) sampled across the Canadian [...]
Balancing production and environmental outcomes in Australia’s tropical savanna under global change
Published: 2024-02-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
Livestock production is an integral part of the global food system and the livelihoods of local people, but it also raises issues of environmental sustainability due to issues such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, biodiversity decline, land degradation, and water use. Further challenges to the social and environmental sustainability of extensive livestock systems may arise from changes in [...]
Barcoding Brazilian mammals to monitor biological diversity and threats: trends, perspectives, and knowledge gaps
Published: 2024-02-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
DNA barcoding and environmental DNA (eDNA) represent an important advance for biomonitoring the world's biodiversity and its threats. However, these methods are highly dependent on the presence of species sequences on molecular databases. Brazil is one of the largest and most biologically diverse countries in the world. However, many knowledge gaps still exist for the description, identification, [...]
Evolutionary perspectives on thiamine supplementation of managed Pacific salmonid populations
Published: 2024-02-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
Thiamine deficiency complex (TDC) in fishes has been identified in an ever-expanding list of species and populations. In many documented occurrences of TDC in fishes, rates of juvenile mortality have reached 90% at the population level, with many females producing no surviving offspring. Such sweeping demographic losses and concomitant decreases in genetic diversity due to TDC can be prevented by [...]
Survival patterns and population stability of cliff plants suggest high resistance to environmental variability
Published: 2024-02-09
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Cliffs are marginal and poorly studied habitats that are home to a high proportion of endemic or threatened species. Here, we review the survival patterns and population dynamics of plants growing on vertical cliffs and compare them to other plants with similar life histories that grow on the ground. To this end, we have compiled studies of cliff and ground plants from two main sources: MONITO [...]
The costs and benefits of publicising species discoveries.
Published: 2024-02-09
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Biodiversity, Biology
Public information about where species are found can influence what happens to them – from building support to protect their habitat, to telling poachers where to find a target. Recent heated scientific debate about whether to release information about species’ locations when new species or populations are found have highlighted the trade-off between the risk of damage or loss versus the benefits [...]
Leveraging Biodiversity Net Gain to address invertebrate declines in England
Published: 2024-02-09
Subjects: Biodiversity, Entomology
Meeting ambitions such as the Global Biodiversity Framework 2030 targets will require multiple conservation mechanisms that benefit the widest possible range of habitats and species. Using England as a case study, here we evaluate the likely impact of a novel and ambitious ecological compensation policy, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), on terrestrial insects, spiders, and other arthropods [...]
Ten Simple Rules to build a Model Life Cycle
Published: 2024-02-09
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Software Engineering
Just like data, models have their own life cycle. By recognizing how one’s model fits within the life cycle of the data (or at least, ensuring that the model life cycle is understood), we can identify opportunities to foster new collaborations, encourage better practices in data analysis, and ultimately accelerate research. In this manuscript, we introduce the Model Life Cycle and develop a [...]