Preprints
There are 1657 Preprints listed.
Ecosystem-based metrics provide better targets than explicit extinction targets for biodiversity frameworks
Published: 2020-06-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The post-2020 global biodiversity framework has the potential to shape the future of life on Earth, so great care must be taken in deciding its aims. The failure of all but one of the Aichi Targets requires a rethinking of prior agreements [1], and conservationists are now exploring new types of targets that are more likely to succeed. One commonly-suggested potential metric is extinction, with [...]
(0001–0003) Proposals to reject the names Tutuca, T. chilensis, and T. fistulosa (Poaceae)
Published: 2020-06-25
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
[Nomenclatural proposal, in press in Taxon, abstract not applicable]
Variation in regrowth ability in relation to land use intensity and predictability in three common grassland herbs
Published: 2020-06-25
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Aims Plant populations in managed grasslands are subject to strong selection exerted by grazing, mowing and fertilization. Many previous studies showed that this can cause evolutionary changes in mean trait values, but little is known about the evolution of adaptive plant phenotypic plasticity in response to grassland management. Methods We conducted an outdoor common garden experiment to test [...]
Online conferences for better learning
Published: 2020-06-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Conferences provide an invaluable set of opportunities for professional development. Online, virtual, and distributed conferences do not necessarily mean less opportunity for growth and innovation in science but varied and novel options for communicating the scientific process. Open science and many existing tools and structures are in place in the practice of contemporary ecology and evolution [...]
Online conferences for better learning
Published: 2020-06-22
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Conferences provide an invaluable set of opportunities for professional development. Online, virtual, and distributed conferences do not necessarily mean less opportunity for growth and innovation in science but varied and novel options for communicating the scientific process. Open science and many existing tools and structures are in place in the practice of contemporary ecology and evolution [...]
Delineating fragmented grassland patches in the tropical region using multi-seasonal SAR and Optical Satellite Images
Published: 2020-06-19
Subjects: Life Sciences
Globally grasslands are declining and are in highly degraded conditions. In south Asia grasslands are neglected and treated as wastelands. They remain unprotected, highly fragmented, and poorly understood which has led to a loss of unique biodiversity and livelihoods. Mapping grasslands accurately is a challenge and current maps based on optical remote sensing often over- or underestimate [...]
Ten simple rules for building an anti-racist lab
Published: 2020-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Demographics of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce and student body in the U.S. and Europe continue to show severe underrepresentation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). Among the documented causes of the persistent lack of diversity in STEM include bias, discrimination, and harassment of members of underrepresented minority groups (URMs). These [...]
Shade-tree rehabilitation in vanilla agroforests is yield neutral and may translate into landscape-scale canopy cover gains
Published: 2020-06-18
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Agroforestry can contribute to an increase in tree cover in historically forested tropical landscapes with associated gains in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, but only if established on open land instead of underneath a forest canopy. However, declines in yields with increasing shade are common across agroforestry crops, driving shade-tree removal in forest-derived agroforests and [...]
PRIORITY EFFECTS AND ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION
Published: 2020-06-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Priority effects refer to the order or timing of species arrival, including how species that arrive early to a site either positively or negatively affect establishment, growth, or reproduction of species that arrive later. Despite clear implications of priority effects on ecological restoration, to date there are no reviews of how and where priority effects have been studied and the extent to [...]
Husby, Reed & Visser - Demonstrating temperature induced phenological mismatch does not require negative effects on fitness or population growth: A comment on Samplonius et al.
Published: 2020-06-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
In a recent article Samplonius et al. (2020; preprint on EcoEvoRxiv, Version 1, Submitted 05, 2020 | Last edited: May 06, 2020) argue that there are “systematic weaknesses in the evidence for temperature mediated phenological mismatch”. While we appreciate their review of the literature on this topic and their call for a broadening of the taxonomic and geographic scope of mismatch research, their [...]
Potential effects of habitat fragmentation on wild animal welfare
Published: 2020-06-18
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
The fragmentation of habitat has occurred throughout the history of life on Earth, but has been accelerated and magnified in scale over the past few centuries as a result of human industrial development. Habitat fragmentation affects the welfare of some wild animals directly, through the often violent processes that bring about fragmentation and by reducing the distance between them and the [...]
Do the ages of parents or helpers affect offspring fitness in a cooperatively breeding bird?
Published: 2020-06-16
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Age-related changes in either the phenotypes or genotypes of care-givers can impact juvenile performance. However, rarely in wild populations have germline and non-germline transgenerational effects of ageing been separately quantified. In cooperatively breeding animals, in addition to parental ages, the age of ‘helpers’ attending the nest may also impact juvenile performance. Using a wild [...]
Animal size and seawater temperature, but not pH, influence a repeatable startle response behaviour in a wide-ranging marine mollusc
Published: 2020-06-16
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Startle response behaviours are important in predator avoidance and escape for a wide array of animals. For many marine invertebrates, however, startle response behaviours are understudied, and the effects of global change stressors on these responses are unknown. We exposed two size classes of blue mussels (Mytilus edulis × trossulus) to different combinations of temperature (15 and 19 °C) and [...]
Phylogeny can Inform Animal Model Development for Both Inherited and Induced Conditions: Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)
Published: 2020-06-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The use of animal models in research on human and veterinary diseases and disorders is retracting, though it is likely to remain critical for decades. In light of increasing regulation and expectations of judicious use of animal subjects, we examine the idea that the use of animal models can be guided by phylogenetic relationships and modern evolutionary and cladistic analyses. Given that [...]
Potential long-distance dispersal of freshwater diatoms adhering to waterfowl plumage
Published: 2020-06-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Waterfowl are potential long-distance dispersal vectors for aquatic microbes such as diatoms, but supporting empirical data are scarce, especially concerning external transport on feathers. 2. We conducted an experiment designed to partially emulate diatom dispersal via adherence to waterfowl, and to evaluate the effects of relative humidity (RH) and exposure time on viability. We dipped [...]