Preprints
There are 2748 Preprints listed.
A species-level multi-trophic metaweb for Switzerland
Published: 2024-06-20
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Understanding how species interact within ecological networks is essential for predicting the consequences of environmental change, from trophic cascades to broader changes in species distributions and ecosystem functioning across large spatial scales. To facilitate the such explorations, we constructed trophiCH: a national trophic meta-food web (henceforth “metaweb”) that includes vertebrates, [...]
Microbial growth in soil
Published: 2024-06-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences
The growth rate of a microorganism is a simple yet profound way to quantify its impact on the world. Microbial fitness in the environment depends on the ability to reproduce quickly when conditions are favorable and adopt a survival physiology when conditions worsen, which cells coordinate by adjusting their growth rate. At the population level, per capita growth rate is a sensitive metric of [...]
L’espèce incertaine et les taxons flous
Published: 2024-06-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
La question de la « bonne » définition de l’espèce, qui unit les biologistes, les naturalistes et les personnes impliquées dans l’usage ou la conservation de la biodiversité, est constamment réactualisée par les progrès des connaissances sur l’évolution et la spéciation. Cette question est loin [...]
Genetic variation of heat tolerance in a model ectotherm: an approach using thermal death time curves
Published: 2024-06-19
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology
The assessment of thermal tolerance holds significant importance in predicting the physiological responses of ectotherms, particularly in elucidating their capacity for evolutionary adaptation in the context of global warming. Current approaches to assessing thermal tolerance have limitations that can lead to misleading results, especially with regard to the heritability of thermal limits. [...]
Curating reserve level species lists in an era of diverse and dynamic data sources
Published: 2024-06-19
Subjects: Life Sciences
Dynamic yet accurate reserve-level species lists are essential for conservation and biodiversity research. Even when such lists exist, changing taxonomy, ongoing species migrations and invasions, and new discoveries of historically overlooked species mean static lists can become rapidly outdated. Biodiversity databases such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and citizen science [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Tropical East Pacific
Published: 2024-06-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Mangroves of the Tropical East Pacific (TEP) province is a regional ecosystem subgroup (Level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology), present in the coastal ecoregions of the Mexican Tropical Pacific, Chiapas-Nicaragua, Nicoya, Panama Bight, and Guayaquil. In 2020, mangroves cover 7782 km2 in the province, representing 5.3% of the global coverage. In the province, there are eight true [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Warm Temperate Northwest Atlantic
Published: 2024-06-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The ‘Mangroves of the Warm Temperate Northwest Atlantic’ province is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). It includes the marine ecoregions of Carolinian and Northern Gulf of Mexico. The biota is characterized by 3 species of mangroves: Avicennia germinans, Laguncularia racemosa, and Rhizophora mangle, and 1 mangrove associate Conocarpus erectus, [...]
Identity crisis? News reports on invasive species feature misleading images of unrelated organisms
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
In mainstream media, news outlets play a vital role in raising awareness and rallying public support for managing invasive species. However, news reports on invasive species occasionally feature misleading images of unrelated organisms. In this correspondence, I illustrate the problem with recent international news reports on invasions by Red Imported Fire Ants (Solenopsis invicta) in Asia, [...]
Symbiont community changes confer fitness benefits for larvae, but not juveniles, in a vertically transmitting coral
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Coral reefs worldwide are threatened by increasing ocean temperatures because of the sensitivity of the coral-algal symbiosis to thermal stress. Reef building corals form mutualistic symbiotic relationships with dinoflagellates (family Symbiodiniaceae), including those species which acquire their initial symbiont complement from their parents. Changes in the composition of symbiont communities, [...]
Heat tolerance and its plasticity in freshwater and marine fishes are linked to their thermal regimes.
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Responses to climate change are rooted in thermal physiology, and many studies have focussed on heat tolerance and plasticity of heat tolerance. Latitudinal patterns in heat tolerance are commonly considered to reflect latitudinal differences in thermal regimes, but direct tests are few. Here we show that the extremes and fluctuations in habitat temperature explain variation in heat tolerance of [...]
Leveraging Earth Observation to monitor genetic diversity from Space
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Genetic diversity within and among populations is essential for species persistence, yet its assessment across many species, at national and regional scales, remains challenging. Conservationists, ecosystem managers, and Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) still require accessible tools for reliable and efficient monitoring at the multiple scales relevant for policy and [...]
Asian Hornbill Bibliography: a dynamic, online, open-access reference database for use in manuscript citations and hornbill research
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Forest Sciences, Library and Information Science, Nature and Society Relations, Ornithology, Plant Sciences, Publishing, Scholarly Publishing
Bibliographic databases and citation tools are integral aids to research. The Asian Hornbill Bibliography presents a compendium of research on Asian hornbills by combining an open access bibliographic database with the free and open source reference manager, Zotero. The bibliography, also hosted and made accessible from the IUCN Hornbill Specialist Group website, includes 725 publications, [...]
Climatic Variability Shapes Plasticity of Hydric and Thermal Physiology in Tropical Geckos
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Phenotypic plasticity in reptiles is a key mechanism enabling individuals to maintain and optimize physiological responses to changing environments. The ability to adjust metabolic rates and thermal physiology in response to seasonal changes is known to be central to the physiological ecology of some reptiles, but less is known about reptiles’ ability to exhibit seasonal flexibility in rates of [...]
Gehyra Geckos Prioritise Warm Over Humid Environments
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Maintaining stable hydric and thermal states are dual challenges for reptiles that inhabit terrestrial environments with variable conditions across time and space. Under some conditions, reptiles face a conundrum where both physiological parameters cannot be simultaneously maintained at optimal states by behavioural or physiological means. Prioritisation of behavioural regulation of hydric or [...]
Climate Does Not Predict Thermal and Hydric Traits in Northern Australian Geckos
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Reptiles are challenged with maintaining stable hydric states and viable body temperatures in a variable terrestrial environment. Reptiles can use behaviour to select favourable microhabitats as well as physiological adaptations, such as increased skin resistance to water loss to regulate their hydric and thermal states. The degree to which a species’ physiology is adapted to overcome [...]