Preprints
There are 2629 Preprints listed.
Experimental protocol for validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics palaeoecological simulations
Published: 2024-01-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are increasingly used to test palaeoecological hypotheses. These analyses output simulated velocity and pressure flow profiles, and drag and lift force values acting on a model. These outputs are presumed to be internally consistent, assuming consistently applied parameters, but it is unclear whether these reflect real-world force measurements. [...]
The fossil record of the Neogene Carnivore Mammals from Spain
Published: 2024-01-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Carnivore mammals (Carnivora, Mammalia) constitute a significant component of the Spanish Neogene faunas, not so much due to their fossil abundance, which is generally low, but rather because of their high degree of taxonomic diversity. We assessed their evolutionary dynamics from the fossil record of Iberian carnivores using per-taxon rates of origination, extinctions and turnover combined with [...]
Conceptual Models regarding Internal and External Dynamics and Their Interaction in Biological Phenomena
Published: 2024-01-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
Much research has been done on the evolutionary processes and general properties of life from the fields of systems biology, mathematical biology, and evolutionary biology. Life is a system in which micro and macro are coordinated and subsystems are organized to maintain metabolism and function. Life also has systems that maintain homeostasis within the body. Life adapts to time and space, [...]
Hybridization potential of brown trout, with particular reference to invaded environments
Published: 2024-01-26
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Population Biology
Hybridization is a complex process beginning with the mating of two species. However, hybrid offspring frequency does not predict hetero-specific mating frequency, as post-mating, both pre-zygotic and post-zygotic barriers influence their occurrence. Post-zygotic outbreeding depression usually results in poor embryo-juvenile survival or the production of sterile hybrid offspring. Females have [...]
Quantifying soil microbial effects on plant species coexistence: a conceptual synthesis
Published: 2024-01-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Soil microorganisms play a critical role in shaping the biodiversity dynamics of plant communities. These microbial effects can arise through direct mediation of plant fitness by pathogens and mutualists, and over the past two decades, numerous studies have shined a spotlight on the role of dynamic feedbacks between plants and soil microorganisms as key determinants of plant species coexistence. [...]
Puma space use and dispersal in tropical biodiversity hotspots: bridging a gap to connect individuals to populations
Published: 2024-01-25
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Assessing residency and dispersal behavior of apex predators and its consequences for landscape connectivity is of paramount importance for understanding population- and ecosystem- effects of anthropogenic land use change. However, basic information on animal space use is still lacking, particularly in the Tropics. Here we synthesize ranging and dispersal ecological information on pumas (Puma [...]
Parasitism and the tradeoffs of social grouping: The role of parasite transmission mode
Published: 2024-01-25
Subjects: Life Sciences
Animals form social groups to gain benefits to numerous fitness-enhancing processes, such as foraging, defense, and energy expenditure. While social grouping can increase parasite exposure, it can also serve as a defensive mechanism against parasites (defined broadly here as organisms with obligate, persistent, and harmful consumer associations with a host). Here, we present a conceptual [...]
A Critique of Thompson and Ramírez-Barahona (2023) or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fossil Record
Published: 2024-01-25
Subjects: Life Sciences
Last year, a study published in Biology Letters by Thompson and Ramírez-Barahona (2023) argued that, according to analyses of diversification on two massive molecular phylogenies comprising thousands of species, there is no evidence that angiosperms (i.e., flowering plants) were affected by the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction. Here I show that these conclusions are flawed from both [...]
Predicting organismal response to marine heatwaves using mechanistic thermal landscape models
Published: 2024-01-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Marine heatwaves (MHWs) can cause thermal stress in marine ectotherms, experienced as a pulse against the press of anthropogenic warming. When thermal stress exceeds organismal capacity to maintain homeostasis, organism survival becomes time-limited and can result in mass mortality events. Current methods of detecting and categorizing MHWs rely on statistical analysis of historic climatology, and [...]
Temporal changes in streamflow can predict parasitism levels in freshwater prawns better than host traits
Published: 2024-01-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Understanding how changes in the hydrological regime drive parasite loads and dynamics remains a challenging issue in ecological parasitology. Temporal changes in streamflow and rainfall are key hydrological factors that could alter interactions between the parasite and host and affect parasitism levels. However, to investigate the effect of streamflow, rainfall, and its mechanisms, it is [...]
Bayesian Estimation of Cooccurrence Affinity with Dyadic Regression
Published: 2024-01-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Estimating underlying cooccurrence relationships between pairs of species has long been a challenging task in ecology as the extent to which species actually cooccur is partially dependent on their prevalences. While recent work has taken large steps towards solving this problem, the next question is how to assess the factors that influence cooccurrence. Here I show that a recently proposed [...]
Distribution, Abundance and Status of At-Risk Birds at a Six-Acre Site Within the Upper Boileau Biodiversity Reserve, Québec: A Year-Long Research Study
Published: 2024-01-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Understanding the distribution, abundance and status of at-risk birds in any area where human impact is low is an imperative in understanding the larger ecological situation. Birds have been widely seen as reliable indicators of ecological health and there have been significant population declines in North America, especially among migratory aerial insectivores, and are escalading rapidly. As a [...]
A systematic review and meta-analysis of anti-predator mechanisms of eyespots: conspicuous pattern vs eye mimicry
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Eyespot patterns have evolved in many prey species. These patterns were traditionally explained by the eye mimicry hypothesis, which proposes that eyespots resembling vertebrate eyes function as predator avoidance. However, it is possible that eyespots do not mimic eyes: according to the conspicuousness hypothesis, eyespots are just one form of vivid signals where only conspicuousness matters. [...]
Beyond Darwin - the general evolutionary theory as unification of biological and cultural evolution
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Evolution, Social and Cultural Anthropology
The general evolutionary theory can be seen as a comprehensive generalization and extension of Darwin's theory. The basic idea is to consider not only the evolution of genetic information - as Darwin did - but also the evolution of very general information. It shows that evolution is characterized by the fact that new types of information have developed in leaps and bounds, each with new storage [...]
Conjugation Related Costs Have Reduced Impact on *in silico* Plasmid Persistence
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Due to the important role they play in the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis and in microbial evolution in general, a great deal of empirical and theoretical work is currently underway, trying to understand plasmid ecology. One of the key questions is how these often costly genetic elements persist in host populations. Here I show that when modelling plasmid population dynamics, it is not [...]