Preprints
There are 1649 Preprints listed.
Larval cannibalism in Phyllobates poison frogs
Published: 2023-03-02
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Cannibalistic behaviour between tadpoles of dendrobatoid poison frogs has been observed in several species with complex parental care dynamics, leading to the idea that it may have played a role in the evolution of parental care. However, the existence or characteristics of this behaviour remain largely unknown beyond a handful of well-studied species. I report direct and indirect observations of [...]
Lipid Metabolism in Response to Cold
Published: 2023-03-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology
Temperature directly shapes insect physiology and has a preponderant effect on life history traits. Winter conditions in temperate and polar regions are especially challenging for insects. Extremely low temperatures can indeed compromise insect survival by promoting freezing of body fluids, but mild cold temperatures above 0 °C (i.e. chilling) can also lead to complex and severe physiological [...]
The effects of preformed vitamin A and provitamin A carotenoid supplementation on tadpoles of the poison frog Phyllobates vittatus
Published: 2023-02-28
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Zoology
Understanding the nutritional requirements of captive animals is necessary for proper animal husbandry, however, the specific dietary requirements for many amphibian species commonly kept in captivity are unknown. Like most vertebrates, frogs cannot synthesize carotenoids and must therefore obtain these essential nutrients through diet. It is unclear if amphibians can cleave provitamin A [...]
How do microbes grow in nature? The role of population dynamics in microbial ecology and evolution
Published: 2023-02-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Systems Biology
The growth of microbial populations in nature is dynamic, as the cellular physiology and environment of these populations change. Population dynamics have wide-ranging consequences for ecology and evolution, determining how species interact and which mutations fix. Understanding these dynamics is also critical for clinical and environmental applications in which we need to promote or inhibit [...]
Symbiotic status alters fungal eco-evolutionary offspring trajectories
Published: 2023-02-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Across free-living organisms, the ecology and evolution of offspring morphology is shaped by interactions with biotic and abiotic environments during dispersal and early establishment in new habitats. However, the ecology and evolution of offspring morphology for symbiotic species has been largely ignored despite host-symbiont interactions being ubiquitous in all ecosystems and across all [...]
A probabilistic approach to estimating timber harvest location
Published: 2023-02-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biostatistics, Forest Management, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models
Determining the harvest location of timber is crucial to enforcing international regulations designed to protect natural resources and to tackle illegal logging and associated trade in forest products. Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis (SIRA) can be used to verify claims of timber harvest location by matching levels of naturally-occurring stable isotopes within wood tissue to location-specific ratios [...]
How to do biodiversity-related science communication
Published: 2023-02-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Communication, International and Intercultural Communication
Biodiversity is the foundation of our lives. Yet we destroy ecosystems and drive species to extinction. Human-induced biodiversity loss does not yet receive sufficient public attention, although biodiversity is fundamental for dealing with global environmental crises. Effective communication of biodiversity-related knowledge is challenging but crucial and should contribute to evidence-based [...]
Solar radiation drives potential demographic collapse in a perennial bunchgrass via dramatically reduced seedling establishment
Published: 2023-02-20
Subjects: Biology, Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Plant Sciences, Plant Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Many perennial plants in semi-arid rangelands have experienced population declines, and understanding the ecological and demographic processes behind these declines is important to slowing or reversing them. Although anthropogenic disturbances drive many declines, other sorts of environmental variability, such as the differences in solar radiation with aspect, may impact population success [...]
Conceptualizing microbe-plasmid communities as complex adaptive systems
Published: 2023-02-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Plasmids shape microbial communities' diversity, structure, and function. Nevertheless, we lack a mechanistic understanding of how community structure and dynamics emerge from local microbe-plasmid interactions and co-evolution. Addressing this gap is challenging because multiple processes operate simultaneously at multiple levels of organization. For example, immunity operates between a plasmid [...]
Extra-pair paternity, breeding density and synchrony in natural cavities versus nestboxes in two passerine birds
Published: 2023-02-18
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology
Most of what is known about extra-pair paternity in hole-nesting birds derives from studies using artificial nesting sites, such as nestboxes. However, it has rarely been investigated whether inference drawn from breeding events taking place in nestboxes matches what would be observed under natural conditions, i.e. in natural cavities. We here report on a variation in promiscuity in blue tits and [...]
Nature exposure and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: A Navigation Guide systematic review with meta-analysis
Published: 2023-02-18
Subjects: Medicine and Health Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Previous reviews concluded that nature contact was an important coping strategy against poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the quality of evidence in these reviews was not sufficiently documented in terms of the risk of bias in reviewed studies. We attempted to fill this gap with a Navigation Guide systematic review and meta-analyses on the associations between nature [...]
High Survival and Percentages of Giraffe Calves Signal Areas in Need of Protection
Published: 2023-02-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
We surveyed endangered Masai giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) at Oloirien Group Ranch (OGR) and Oloisukut Conservancy (OC) in Kenya to determine their conservation potential. Here, Maasai settlements, livestock, and predator control result in lion densities less than half that of adjacent protected areas. Using surveys and photographic mark-recapture (PMR), we annually calculated [...]
Kinematics and behaviour in fish escape responses: guidelines for conducting, analysing, and reporting experiments
Published: 2023-02-17
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Work carried out since the late 70s has provided key insights into the comparative biomechanics, kinematics, behaviour, and neurobiology of fish escape responses. With environmental change expected to affect the physiology and biomechanics of aquatic ectotherms, there is a growing interest in understanding how environmental stressors impact the swimming performance and behaviour of fishes during [...]
Prestige bias in cultural evolutionary dynamics
Published: 2023-02-16
Subjects: Evolution, Life Sciences, Social and Cultural Anthropology
If the traits of more successful individuals are more likely to be adopted, the resulting cultural transmission is described as being success-biased. Prestige may be used as a proxy for success. Here, we model prestige bias as a combination of indirect success bias and influence bias, the latter meaning that the choice of a role-model depends on the number of individuals that have already copied [...]
Two-step CRISPR-Cas9 protocol for transposable element deletion in D. melanogaster natural populations
Published: 2023-02-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
This protocol generates a precise deletion of a transposable element (TE) in a natural population of Drosophila melanogaster using two steps of CRISPR-Cas9 homology-directed repair. In the first step, the TE is replaced by a fluorescent marker, while in the second CRISPR-Cas9 step the fluorescence marker is removed to avoid any possible effect of the introduced marker sequence. This two-step [...]