Preprints
There are 1957 Preprints listed.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of anti-predator mechanisms of eyespots: conspicuous pattern vs eye mimicry
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Eyespot patterns have evolved in many prey species. These patterns were traditionally explained by the eye mimicry hypothesis, which proposes that eyespots resembling vertebrate eyes function as predator avoidance. However, it is possible that eyespots do not mimic eyes: according to the conspicuousness hypothesis, eyespots are just one form of vivid signals where only conspicuousness matters. [...]
Beyond Darwin - the general evolutionary theory as unification of biological and cultural evolution
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Evolution, Social and Cultural Anthropology
The general evolutionary theory can be seen as a comprehensive generalization and extension of Darwin's theory. The basic idea is to consider not only the evolution of genetic information - as Darwin did - but also the evolution of very general information. It shows that evolution is characterized by the fact that new types of information have developed in leaps and bounds, each with new storage [...]
Conjugation Related Costs Have Reduced Impact on *in silico* Plasmid Persistence
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Due to the important role they play in the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis and in microbial evolution in general, a great deal of empirical and theoretical work is currently underway, trying to understand plasmid ecology. One of the key questions is how these often costly genetic elements persist in host populations. Here I show that when modelling plasmid population dynamics, it is not [...]
Evidence to inform spatial management of a western Pacific Ocean tuna purse seine fishery
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Fisheries can have profound impacts on co-occurring species exposed to incidental capture, particularly those with life history traits that make them vulnerable to elevated mortality levels. Fisheries spatial management holds substantial potential to balance socioeconomic benefits and costs to threatened bycatch species. This study analyzed observer program data for a western Pacific Ocean tuna [...]
Evolutionary outcomes arising from bistability in ecosystem dynamics
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
While it is known that shallow lakes ecosystems may experience abrupt shifts (ie tipping points) from one state to a contrasting degraded alternative state as a result of gradual environmental changes, the role of evolutionary processes and the impact of trait variation in this context remain largely unexplored. It is crucial to elucidate how eco-evolutionary feedbacks affect abrupt ecological [...]
Food web trophic control modulates tropical Atlantic reef ecosystems response to marine heat wave intensity and duration
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Marine Heat Waves (MHWs) are episodes of anomalous warming in the ocean that can last from a few days to months. MHWs have different characteristics in terms of intensity, duration, and frequency and generate thermal stress on marine ecosystems. In reef ecosystems, they are one of the main causes of decreased presence and abundance of corals, invertebrates, and fish. The deleterious capacity [...]
Reef fish functional groups show variable declines due to deforestation-driven sedimentation, while flexible harvesting mitigates this damage
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Dynamic Systems, Natural Resources and Conservation, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Sedimentation is a major coral reef stressor, with effects including suppressing algae consumption by herbivorous fish. This puts pressure on reef fish populations and the fisheries that harvest them. Deforestation causes much sedimentation on reefs, and is an ongoing concern in Pacific island states. Although ecosystem processes like deforestation and fish population dynamics are usually far [...]
Non-linearity and temporal variability are overlooked components of global population dynamics
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Aim. Population dynamics are usually assessed through linear trend analysis, quantifying their general direction. However, linear trends may hide substantial variations in population dynamics that could reconcile apparent discrepancies when quantifying the extent of the biodiversity crisis. We seek to determine whether the use of non-linear methods and [...]
A photographic guide for determining egg incubation stage in the Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus)
Published: 2024-01-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
When monitoring the nesting biology of wild birds, nests are often found after the eggs have been laid and incubation has commenced. Candling—the use of a bright light to illuminate egg contents—is a useful method for estimating embryo development and incubation stage. This information is used to estimate when incubation started and predict when eggs will hatch. As the focus of several long-term [...]
Use of a communal display area by Rufous Whistlers (Pachycephala rufiventris)
Published: 2024-01-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
A universal DNA signature for the Tree of Life
Published: 2024-01-18
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Species identification using DNA barcodes has revolutionized biodiversity sciences and society at large. However, conventional barcoding methods may lack power and universal applicability across the Tree of Life. Alternative methods based on whole genome sequencing are hard to scale due to large data requirements. Here, we develop a novel DNA-based identification method, varKoding, using [...]
No time to die: Temporal patterns of nest predation in a multi-brooded Southern Hemisphere passerine bird
Published: 2024-01-18
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Ornithology
1. Nest predation is frequently the primary cause of early-life mortality in wild avian populations, generating selection for optimising the timing of reproduction to reduce predation risk. Investigating temporal patterns of nest predation is therefore necessary for understanding the intricate relationships between birds and their predators. 2. In this study, we considered the role of temporal [...]
Opportunity Begets Opportunity to Drive Macroevolutionary Dynamics of a Diverse Lizard Radiation
Published: 2024-01-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Evolution proceeds unevenly across the tree of life, with some lineages accumulating diversity more rapidly than others. Explaining this disparity is challenging as similar evolutionary triggers often do not result in analogous shifts across the tree, and similar shifts may reflect different evolutionary triggers. We used a combination of approaches to directly consider such context-dependency [...]
neonPlantEcology: an R package for preparing NEON plant data for use in ecological research
Published: 2024-01-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental-scale endeavor of ecological data collection for 30 years. We created a software package, neonPlantEcology that automatically arranges the raw data from the plant presence and percent cover (DP1.10058.001) data product from NEON into tables familiar to plant ecologists. Because of the broad scale of the observatory, it is [...]
Opportunities and challenges in applying AI to evolutionary morphology
Published: 2024-01-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to revolutionise many aspects of science, including the study of evolutionary morphology. While classical AI methods such as principal component analysis and cluster analysis have been commonplace in the study of evolutionary morphology for decades, recent years have seen increasing application of deep learning to ecology and evolutionary biology. As [...]