Preprints
There are 1657 Preprints listed.
Why understanding stakeholder perspectives and emotions is important in upland woodland creation – a case study from Cumbria, UK
Published: 2021-10-15
Subjects: Community-based Research, Environmental Studies, Human Ecology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sociology
Upland regions in the United Kingdom (UK) are increasingly under consideration as potential areas for the creation of woodlands. This is driven by a combination of factors, including the aims of UK forestry and environmental policy to increase woodland cover, meeting international greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, agro-environment schemes in national and international policy, and an [...]
Selective Breeding to Support the Long-Term Persistence of Coral Reefs
Published: 2021-10-14
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The decline of coral reefs has prompted an emergent field of research on the potential for various biological interventions focused on increasing stress tolerance in corals. Among these is selective breeding, the selection and reproductive crossing of parental stock based on a trait of interest with the goal of enhancing the frequency or intensity of the trait in subsequent generations. Selective [...]
insectDisease: programmatic access to the Ecological Database of the Worlds Insect Pathogens
Published: 2021-10-13
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Curated databases of species interactions are instrumental to exploring and understanding the spatial distribution of species and their biotic interactions. In the process of conducting such projects, data development and curation efforts may give rise to a data product with utility beyond the scope of the original work, but which becomes inaccessible over time. Data describing insect [...]
The effect of dominance rank on female reproductive success in social mammals
Published: 2021-10-13
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Life in social groups, while potentially providing social benefits, inevitably leads to conflict among group members. In many social mammals, such conflicts lead to the formation of dominance hierarchies, where high-ranking individuals consistently outcompete other group members. Given that competition is a fundamental tenet of the theory of natural selection, it is generally assumed that [...]
The rate of environmental change as an important driver across scales in ecology
Published: 2021-10-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Global change has been predominantly studied from the prism of ‘how much’ rather than ‘how fast’ change occurs. The paradigm underlying the former assumes that a smooth change in an environmental driver can force a regime shift between alternative states (Bifurcation-tipping). This presupposes that environmental conditions change at a rate which allows the ecological entity to track them and thus [...]
Orchid fruiting success is unrelated to surrounding floral resources in South Australian plant communities
Published: 2021-10-11
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
To maintain recruitment in orchid populations in an ecosystem setting, we must understand how surrounding floral resources affect fruiting success. We studied fruiting success in two endemic Australian species, Diruis pardina and Glossodia major, in relation to surrounding floral resources. Diuris pardina has a visually deceptive pollination strategy via mimicry of pea flowers, attracting [...]
The age of flowering plants is unknown
Published: 2021-10-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The origin of flowering plants (angiosperms) was one of the most transformative events in the history of our planet. Despite considerable interest from multiple research fields, numerous questions remain, including the age of the group as a whole. Recent studies have reported a perplexing range of estimates for the crown-group age of angiosperms, from ca. 140 Ma (Early Cretaceous) to 270 Ma [...]
Predation impacts brain allometry and offspring production in female guppies (Poecilia reticulata)
Published: 2021-10-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Survivorship under predation exerts strong selection on reproductive traits as well as on brain anatomy of prey. However, how exactly predation and brain evolution are linked has not been resolved as current empirical evidence is inconclusive. This may be due to predation pressure having different effects across life stages and/or due to confounding factors in ecological comparisons of predation [...]
Acoustic signature reveals blue whales tune life history transitions to oceanographic conditions
Published: 2021-10-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
1. Matching the timing of life history transitions with ecosystem phenology is critical for the survival of many species, especially those undertaking long-distance migrations. As a result, whether and how migratory populations adjust timing of life history transitions in response to environmental variability are important questions in ecology and conservation. Yet the flexibility and drivers of [...]
Impacts of woodland planting on nature-based recreational tourism in upland England – a case study
Published: 2021-10-06
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Upland landscapes provide important ecosystem services (ES) to society. One cultural ES - nature-based recreational tourism (NBR) - is a growing industry in upland regions that provides an important revenue to areas where other industries are often in decline. NBR tourism is a service that relies partly on the aesthetic appearance of the landscape. Changes in land management, such as increasing [...]
The importance of ecotype diversity on duckweed growth with and without salt stress
Published: 2021-10-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Aims The pollution of freshwater ecosystems is threatening freshwater plant species diversity worldwide. Freshwater plants, such as duckweed (Lemna minor), are potentially sensitive to novel stressful environments. To test if ecotype diversity could increase resistance to stressful environments, I used seven L. minor populations and measured their growth rates with and without moderate salt [...]
The contributions of Dr. Nettie Stevens to the field of sex chromosome biology
Published: 2021-10-05
Subjects: Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
The early 1900s delivered many foundational discoveries in genetics, including re-discovery of Mendel’s research and the chromosomal theory of inheritance. Following these insights, many focused their research on whether the development of separate sexes had a chromosomal basis or if instead it was caused by environmental factors. It is Dr. Nettie M. Stevens’ Studies in Spermatogenesis (1905) [...]
Dactylogyridae 2022: a meta-analysis of phylogenetic studies and generic diagnoses of parasitic flatworms using published genetic and morphological data
Published: 2021-10-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Dactylogyridae is one of the most studied families of parasitic flatworms with more than 1000 species and 166 genera described to date including ecto-, meso-, and endoparasites. Dactylogyrid monogeneans have been used as model organisms for host-parasite macroevolutionary and biogeographical studies due to the scientific and economic importance of some of their host lineages. Consequently, an [...]
Mitigating climate-driven animal mass mortality events with resilient native scavenger guilds.
Published: 2021-10-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Climate-driven animal mass mortality events (MMEs) will increase as the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather and climate events worsens due to climate change. Besides resulting in demographic catastrophes for affected species, MMEs adds further pressure to vulnerable ecosystems in several ways. We suggest the protection and restoration of resilient native scavenging guilds are key [...]
Revticulate: An R framework for interaction with RevBayes
Published: 2021-10-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
1: Phylogenetic methods are increasingly complex. Researchers need to make many choices about how to model different aspects of the data appropriately. It is increasingly common to deploy hierarchical Bayesian models in which different data types may be described by different processes. This necessitates tools to help users understand model assumptions more clearly. 2: We describe the package [...]