Preprints
There are 1957 Preprints listed.
Open integrated distance sampling for modelling age-structured population dynamics
Published: 2024-01-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Estimation of abundance and demographic rates for populations of wild species is a challenging but fundamental issue for both ecological research and wildlife management. One set of approaches that has been used extensively to estimate abundance of wildlife populations is Distance Sampling (DS) for line or point transect survey data. The first implementations of DS models were only available as [...]
The rarity of Invertebrates prevents reliable application of IUCN Red-List criteria.
Published: 2024-01-05
Subjects: Life Sciences
Among the most widely used information underpinning international conservation efforts is the IUCN Red List of endangered species. The Red List designates species extinction risk based on geographic range, population size, or declines in either. However, the Red-List has poor representation of invertebrates which comprise the majority of animal diversity, and it has frequently been questioned [...]
Solving the “small outbreak problem” in climate epidemiology
Published: 2024-01-05
Subjects: Climate, Diseases, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Environmental Public Health, Epidemiology, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Parasitic Diseases, Public Health, Virus Diseases
Climate change can cause outbreaks of infectious diseases in unfamiliar locations — but how do we know which unusual outbreaks are the result of climate change? Scientists often hesitate to guess, leaving the task to journalists or the public. All of these audiences would benefit from a clear and consistent framework for thinking about causality, especially in situations where outbreaks are too [...]
House Sparrows as Sentinels of Childhood Lead Exposure
Published: 2024-01-05
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Our understanding of connections between human and animal health has advanced substantially since the canary was introduced as a sentinel of toxic conditions in coal mines. Nonetheless, the development of wildlife sentinels for monitoring human exposure to toxins has been limited. Here, we capitalized on a three-decade long child blood lead monitoring program to demonstrate that the globally [...]
The meaning and measure of concordance factors in phylogenomics
Published: 2024-01-04
Subjects: Evolution
As phylogenomic datasets have grown in size, researchers have developed new ways to measure biological variation and to assess statistical support. Larger datasets have many more sites and many more loci, and therefore less sampling variance. While this means that we can more accurately measure the mean signal in these datasets. the lower sampling variance is often reflected in widely used [...]
Quantifying heritability of the environment using animal models: a case study
Published: 2024-01-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Evolutionary ecology has traditionally studied how natural selection shapes the phenotypes of individuals in response to their environment, which increases population fitness. It is also well known how habitat choice can affect individual local adaptation. However, recent work has highlighted the incompleteness of the link between habitat choice and its evolutionary consequences. By treating the [...]
Experimental rapid and small-scale ecological population divergence in the absence of current natural selection
Published: 2024-01-03
Subjects: Life Sciences
Adaptive divergence has long been a core topic in the field of evolutionary biology, with natural selection traditionally considered its only driver. Here we focus on the ability of matching habitat choice to generate population divergence and reproductive isolation. This alternative mechanism of divergence considers that individuals choose their habitats based on an evaluation of the ecological [...]
Performance-dependent movement: An alternative driver of adaptive divergence
Published: 2024-01-02
Subjects: Life Sciences
It is a tenet of evolutionary biology that local adaptation is driven by natural selection, while it is hindered by gene flow. This is because random movements between populations disrupt the match between phenotype and the local environment. However, if individuals moved to the environments where they have higher ecological performance, movements between populations could facilitate local [...]
The Role of Pollination Services in Seed Production: A review
Published: 2023-12-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
In the face of declining insect biodiversity, this study reviews the critical role of pollination services in seed production of food crops. Insects, as pollinators, play a fundamental role in the reproductive processes of both wild and domesticated plants, impacting global agriculture. While previous reviews have assessed the influence of pollinators on primary food production, this review [...]
Using multiple datasets to account for misalignment between statistical and biological populations for abundance estimation
Published: 2023-12-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
A fundamental aspect of ecology is identifying and characterizing population processes. Because a complete census is rare, we almost always use sampling to make inference about the biological population, and the part of the population at risk of sampling is referred to as the statistical population. Ideally, the statistical population is the same as, or accurately represents its corresponding [...]
Biogeographical diet variation within and between the rabbitfishes Siganus corallinus, Siganus virgatus, Siganus doliatus and Siganus trispilos
Published: 2023-12-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Feeding habits of herbivorous fish play an important role in the form and function of coastal marine ecosystems. Rabbitfishes (Siganidae) have been recognized as important consumers of macroalgae in the coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific region. However, it is unclear how their diet varies among and within species at biogeographical scales. The present study assessed the inter- and intra-specific [...]
Smart Solutions, Big Returns: Closing Biodiversity Knowledge Gaps with Digital Agriculture
Published: 2023-12-24
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity
The global expansion and intensification of food production threaten biodiversity, vital for ecosystem services and food security. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) advocates drastic changes in agricultural management, yet translating recommendations into local action is challenging. Biodiversity-friendly practices carry highly uncertain benefits, dissuading their adoption. [...]
Untangling the complex food webs of tropical rainforest streams
Published: 2023-12-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
1- Food webs depict the tangled web of trophic interactions associated with the functioning of an ecosystem. Understanding the mechanisms providing stability to these food webs is therefore vital for conservation efforts and management of natural systems.2- Here, we first characterised a tropical stream meta food web and five individual food webs using a Bayesian Hierarchical approach unifying [...]
Bird life history traits influence the diversity of their associated microbiomes
Published: 2023-12-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Background: The avian microbiome plays an essential role in host development, health, and behavior, but while microbiomes of captive birds have been extensively studied, little is known about how life history traits influence the resident microbial diversity of individuals and of species in wild birds. Host traits may shape their associated microbiomes by modulating the exposure of the host to [...]
European native oyster reef ecosystems are universally Collapsed
Published: 2023-12-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Oyster reefs are often referred to as the temperate functional equivalent of coral reefs. Yet evidence for this analogy is lacking for the European native species Ostrea edulis and its biogenic habitat. Recently assembled historical data provide a unique opportunity to develop a robust definition for this ecosystem type, confirm that O. edulis are biogenic reef builders, and assess its current [...]