Preprints
There are 2386 Preprints listed.
Habitat alteration impacts predation risk in an aposematic amphibian
Published: 2024-10-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Predator-prey interactions can be viewed as an evolutionary arms race influenced by environmental factors. Forest management, for example, can influence such interactions and alter community structure. A common anti-predator strategy, known as aposematism, lies on the coupling of warning signals with secondary (e.g., chemical) defences to deter predators. The European fire salamander (Salamandra [...]
Protecting forests and trees is essential for global agricultural productivity
Published: 2024-10-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Balancing forest conservation and agricultural production is essential for a sustainable future. Here we review the scientific evidence for the relationships between forests and agricultural productivity across different scales, summarizing the contexts under which trees limit, maintain, or enhance agricultural productivity. While synergies and trade-offs occur at local scales, a regional-scale [...]
Widespread loss of important ecosystem services from rapidly urbanising Kathmandu Valley
Published: 2024-10-20
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Ecosystem services are crucial for human well-being as it offers benefits such as food production, water purification, and climate regulation. However, land use change caused by rapid urban expansion poses a significant threat to these services. We investigate the impact of urbanization on ecosystem services in the Kathmandu Valley, a region experiencing intense urban growth. We assessed changes [...]
Turning Brewery Waste into Paper: Brewer’s Spent Grain as an Alternative Fiber in Sustainable Paper Innovation
Published: 2024-10-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Brewer's spent grain is a significant byproduct of the brewing industry, composed mainly of cellulose, hemicelluloses, lignin, and polysaccharides (arabinoxylans). It is primarily used for agricultural purposes, such as animal feed. However, it also presents an alternative option as a substitute for wood cellulose in certain paper grades. This study investigates the strength contribution of [...]
Internet of Nature (IoN) and Time-Series Analysis for Ecosystem Conservation and Forecasting
Published: 2024-10-18
Subjects: Agriculture, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Climate-linked escalation of societally disastrous wildfires
Published: 2024-10-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences
Climate change is forcing societies to contend with increasingly fire-prone ecosystems. Yet, despite evidence of more extreme fire seasons, evidence is lacking globally for trends in wildfires with socially and economically disastrous effects. Using a systematic dataset, we analyse the distribution, trends, and climatic conditions connected with the most lethal and costly wildfire disasters from [...]
Ambitions in national plans do not yet match bold international protection and restoration commitments
Published: 2024-10-17
Subjects: Environmental Law, Environmental Sciences
Almost 200 nations have made bold commitments to halt biodiversity loss as signatories to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (‘GBF’). The effective achievement of the GBF relies on domestic targets and actions, reflected in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (‘NBSAPs’). NBSAPS are an integral feature of the Convention on Biological Diversity (‘CBD’) framework, and [...]
Survival analysis of wildlife cameras exposed to theft
Published: 2024-10-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
Setting camera traps along roads is often necessary for ecological research, yet these locations expose cameras to theft leading to substantial data losses. Measures to minimise this risk include placing cameras away from human settlements. However, the effects of this and other measures on camera-trap theft risk are yet to be quantified. Here, we assessed the impact of gates on roads, the [...]
Gaps in global alien plant trait data and how to fill them
Published: 2024-10-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Aim Functional traits help to understand the ecological processes underlying biological invasions. The extent to which trait data are available for alien plants at the global scale is unknown. In this study, we assess the availability of trait data and identify global gaps and biases Location Global Time Period Present Major taxa studied Vascular plants Methods We used the GloNAF database to get [...]
Should I stay or should I go: Transmission trade-offs in mobile genetic elements
Published: 2024-10-16
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Mobile genetic elements (MGEs), including temperate bacteriophages and conjugative plasmids, are major vectors of virulence and antibiotic resistance in bacterial populations. To maximize reproductive fitness, MGEs have to optimize horizontal and vertical transmission. Yet, the cost of horizontal transmission (e.g. phage lysis) puts these transmission modes at odds. Using virulence-transmission [...]
Urban bumblebees diversify their foraging strategy to maintain nutrient intake
Published: 2024-10-16
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Anthropogenic ecosystems can alter individual functions and ecological processes such as resource use and species interactions. While variability on morphological traits involved in diet and resource use has been observed between urban and non-urban populations of pollinators, the consequences on the dietary and pollen transportation patterns remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the [...]
Acclimatisation affects synchrony in space use and the frequentation of multiple colonies in translocated Griffon Vultures (Gyps fulvus)
Published: 2024-10-16
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Zoology
Translocations are fundamental for the conservation of large raptors, including Old-World vultures. Different release methods are usually assessed by comparing the movement patterns and survival of released individuals. However, these approaches fail to capture important aspects related to the gregarious behaviour of many vulture species. We compared the effect of long (15 months, n = 7) and [...]
Filosofía Fungi
Published: 2024-10-16
Subjects: Arts and Humanities, Life Sciences
Muchos conceptos en ecología y evolución se han construido en base a observaciones zoológicas y, en menor medida, botánicas, mientras que una visión fúngica en estas áreas es prácticamente inexistente. Mucho menos se han indagado aspectos de la filosofía de la biología en base a los hongos. Sin embargo, en este artículo mostramos que dadas sus características particulares, el Reino Fungi [...]
The Fish Challenge to Vertebrate Cognitive Evolution
Published: 2024-10-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
There is tremendous taxonomic variation in the size, shape, and structure of vertebrate brains. While many studies aim at identifying the ecological factors (social and environmental) that explain brain size variation within taxa, a more fundamental divide exists between endotherm and ectotherm vertebrates. Ectotherms have ten times smaller brains than endotherms. The existing hypotheses cannot [...]
Cooperation, status, and altruism in a mixed society of Amazonian parrots
Published: 2024-10-16
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Parrots are a highly intelligent taxon whose complex behaviors in wild societies require description. Here we observed 12 species of parrots, macaws, and parakeets in mixed flocks foraging on exposed cliffs in southeast Perú. For each species, we developed a single bootstrapped index of sociality from 9 derived metrics of abundance, chronology, functional roles, and agonistic interactions. This [...]