Preprints
There are 1657 Preprints listed.
Examining the Associations Between Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and the Potential Distribution of Four Urban Ecosystem Services in Rochester, NY
Published: 2021-08-17
Subjects: Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
As populations and the total area of impervious surfaces continue to grow in developed areas, planners and policy makers must consider how local ecological resources can be utilized to meet the needs and develop climate resilient and sustainable cities. Urban green spaces (UGS) have been identified as critical resources in improving the climate resiliency of cities and the quality of life for [...]
Ecosystem size and complexity are extrinsic drivers of food chain length in branching networks
Published: 2021-08-15
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Understanding the drivers of food chain length in natural communities has intrigued ecologists since the publication of ‘food cycles’ by Elton in the early 20th century. Proposed drivers of food chain length have included extrinsic controls such as productivity, disturbance regime, and ecosystem size, as well as intrinsic factors including food web motifs. However, current theories have largely [...]
Abundance- and biomass-based metrics of functional composition of macroinvertebrates as surrogates of ecosystem attributes in Afrotropical streams
Published: 2021-08-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
The composition of macroinvertebrate functional feeding groups (FFGs) has been used as surrogates of ecosystem attributes in aquatic ecosystems but studies that utilize such knowledge are still limited in the tropics. This study investigated the suitability of abundance- vs. biomass-based metrics of macroinvertebrate FFGs as surrogates of ecosystems attributes of the Sosiani-Kipkaren River in [...]
Food web reconstruction through phylogenetic transfer of low-rank network representation
Published: 2021-08-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Despite their importance in many ecological processes, collecting data and information on ecological interactions, and therefore species interaction networks, is an exceedingly challenging task. For this reason, large parts of the world have a deficit of data of which species interact, and what we can expect the network structure of these interactions to be. As data collection alone is unlikely [...]
Facilitating dynamic and inclusive biodiversity conservation in Britain: an Anthropocene perspective
Published: 2021-08-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Summary We propose an approach to conservation centred on achieving positive future trajectories of dynamic change, applied to all locations and species, and based on societal inclusiveness. Strategies to facilitate change. We take an Anthropocene perspective, in which human society and biodiversity have been inextricably linked for over 10,000 years, and continuing biodiversity change is [...]
Nature’s contributions in coping with a pandemic in the 21st century: A narrative review of evidence during COVID-19
Published: 2021-08-10
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Geography, Medicine and Health Sciences, Mental and Social Health, Nature and Society Relations, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
While COVID-19 lockdowns have slowed coronavirus transmission, such structural measures also have unintended consequences on mental and physical health. Growing evidence shows that exposure to the natural environment (e.g., blue-green spaces) can improve human health and wellbeing. In this narrative review, we synthesized the evidence about natures contributions to health and wellbeing during the [...]
The structure of evolutionary theory: Beyond Neo-Darwinism, Neo-Lamarckism and biased historical narratives about the Modern Synthesis
Published: 2021-08-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The last decades have seen frequent calls for a more extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) that will supposedly overcome the limitations in the current evolutionary framework with its intellectual roots in the Modern Synthesis (MS). Some radical critics even want to entirely abandon the current evolutionary framework, claiming that the MS (often erroneously labelled “Neo-Darwinism”) is outdated, [...]
The potential for physiological performance curves to shape environmental effects on social behaviour
Published: 2021-08-06
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
As individual animals are exposed to varying environmental conditions, phenotypic plasticity will occur in a vast array of physiological traits. For example, shifts in factors such as temperature and oxygen availability can affect the energy demand, cardiovascular system, and neuromuscular function of animals that in turn impact individual behaviour. Here, we argue that non-linear changes in the [...]
Unreciprocated allogrooming hierarchies in a population of wild group-living mammals
Published: 2021-08-06
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Allogrooming can relate to social status in mammalian societies, and thus, be used to infer social structure. This relationship has previously been investigated by examining an individual’s dominance rank and their total amount of allogrooming. This, however, does not account for the identity of allogrooming partners. We applied a novel approach, calculating the linearity and steepness of [...]
Men and wolves: are anthropogenic causes the main driver of wolf mortality in human-dominated landscapes in Italy?
Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences
Over the last 40 years the gray wolf (Canis lupus) re-colonized its historical range in Italy increasing human-predator interactions. However, temporal and spatial trends in wolf mortality, including direct and indirect persecution, were never summarized. This study aims to fill this gap by focusing on the situation of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna regions, believed to host a significant proportion [...]
Early-life conditions impact juvenile telomere length, but do not predict later life-history strategies or fitness in a wild vertebrate
Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Environmental conditions experienced during early life may have long-lasting effects on later-life phenotypes and fitness. Individuals experiencing poor early-life conditions may suffer subsequent fitness constraints. Alternatively, individuals may use a strategic ‘Predictive Adaptive Response’ (PAR), whereby they respond – in terms of physiology or life-history strategy – to the conditions [...]
The evolutionary relevance of social learning and transmission of behaviors in non-social arthropods
Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Research on social learning has centered around vertebrates, but evidence is accumulating that small-brained, non-social arthropods also learn from others. Social learning can lead to social inheritance when socially acquired behaviors are transmitted to subsequent generations. Here, we first highlight the complementarities between social and classical genetic inheritance, using oviposition site [...]
Simultaneous effect of habitat remnancy, exotic species and anthropogenic disturbance on orchid diversity and abundance
Published: 2021-08-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Orchids are potentially useful as ecological indicators because of their sensitivity to habitat fragmentation and anthropogenic disturbance. While many studies explore the effect of single factors on orchid diversity, few investigate how the extent, configuration and condition of surrounding habitat affect whole orchid communities. Here, we unravel the effect of biological invasions, [...]
Transgenerational effects of obesogenic diets in rodents: a meta-analysis
Published: 2021-08-02
Subjects: Biology, Diseases, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Nutrition
Obesity is a major health condition that affects millions worldwide. There is an increased interest in understanding the adverse outcomes associated with obesogenic diets. A multitude of studies have investigated the transgenerational impacts of maternal and parental obesogenic diets on subsequent generations of offspring, but results have largely been mixed. We conducted a systematic review [...]
Dissimilarity of species interaction networks: quantifying the effect of turnover and rewiring
Published: 2021-07-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Despite having established its usefulness in the last ten years, the decomposition of ecological networks in components allowing to measure their β-diversity retains some methodological ambiguities. Notably, how to quantify the relative effect of mechanisms tied to interaction rewiring vs. species turnover has been interpreted differently by different authors. In this contribution, I present [...]