Preprints
There are 1657 Preprints listed.
Trophic cascades and connectivity in coastal benthic marine ecosystems: a meta-analysis of experimental and observational research
Published: 2020-05-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Predators often exert top-down control on lower trophic levels, such that their removal or addition can trigger trophic cascades. Despite coastal ecosystems containing well known trophic cascades, the abiotic and biotic factors governing the occurrence and strength of these cascades are still unclear. We worked to explain the variability of trophic cascades in benthic marine ecosystems by [...]
A Beginner’s Guide to Conducting Reproducible Research
Published: 2020-05-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Reproducible research is widely acknowledged as an important tool for improving science and reducing harm from the "replication crisis", yet research in most fields within biology remains largely irreproducible. In this article, we make the case for why all research should be reproducible, explain why research is often not reproducible, and offer a simple framework that researchers can use to [...]
Understanding Non-genetic Inheritance: Insights from Molecular-Evolutionary Crosstalk
Published: 2020-05-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Understanding the evolutionary and ecological roles of non-genetic inheritance is daunting due to the complexity and diversity of epigenetic mechanisms. We draw on precise insights from molecular structures and events to identify three general features of non-genetic inheritance systems that are central to broader investigations: (i) they are functionally interdependent with, rather than separate [...]
COVID-19 has led to a global increase in web searches for bats: a risk for conservation ?
Published: 2020-04-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused COVID-19 pandemic, is genomically similar to a SARS-like beta-coronavirus found in Chinese rhinolophids. This evolutionary relationship impressed global media, which emphasized bats as key actors in the spillover during the pandemic outbreak. In this study we highlight qualitative and quantitative changes about bats in the media coverage, and Internet search [...]
Predicting tropical tree mortality with leaf spectroscopy
Published: 2020-04-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Plant Sciences, Plant Sciences
Do tropical trees close to death have a distinct leaf spectral signature? Tree mortality rates have been increasing in tropical forests globally which is reducing the global carbon sink. Upcoming hyperspectral satellites could be used to predict regions close to experiencing extensive tree mortality during periods of stress like drought. Here we show how imminent tropical tree mortality in [...]
Financial and institutional support are important for large-scale kelp forest restoration
Published: 2020-04-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Kelps form extensive underwater forests that underpin valuable ecosystem goods and services in temperate and polar rocky coastlines worldwide. Stressors such as ocean warming and pollution are causing regional declines of kelp forests and their associated services worldwide. Kelp forest restoration is becoming a prominent management intervention, but we have little understanding of what drives [...]
[Final version available] Explainable Artificial Intelligence enhances the ecological interpretability of black-box species distribution models
Published: 2020-04-17
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biodiversity, Computer Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used in ecology, biogeography and conservation biology to estimate relationships between environmental variables and species occurrence data and make predictions of how their distributions vary in space and time. During the past two decades, the field has increasingly made use of machine learning approaches for constructing and validating SDMs. Model [...]
Interpopulation differences in developmental plasticity of carnivores determine the emergence of a trophic interaction
Published: 2020-04-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Population Biology
1. Through its influence on trait expression, phenotypic plasticity can shape variation in strengths of interspecific interactions across environmental gradients. If species exhibit interpopulation differences in phenotypic plasticity, their genotypes and environmental conditions may jointly determine the strength of interspecific interactions. 2. To examine this prediction, we experimentally [...]
Rapidly mapping fire effects on biodiversity at a large-scale using citizen science
Published: 2020-04-16
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The unprecedented scale of the 2019-2020 eastern Australian bushfires exemplifies the challenges that scientists and conservation biologists face monitoring the effects of biodiversity in the aftermath of large-scale environmental disturbances. After a large-scale disturbance there are conservation policy and management actions that need to be both timely and informed by data. By working with the [...]
Survival and cause-specific mortality of harvested willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) in central Norway
Published: 2020-04-14
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Survival is a key demographic component that often vary as a result of human activities such as recreational harvest. Detailed understanding of seasonal variation in mortality patterns and the role of various risk factors is thus crucial for understanding the link between environmental variation and wildlife population dynamics, and to design sustainable harvest management systems. Here, we [...]
What we can learn from the parallels between the COVID-19 and the future climate change crises
Published: 2020-04-11
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak pandemic is now a global crisis. It has caused 1.6+ million confirmed cases and 100 000+ deaths at the time of writing and triggered unprecedented preventative measures that have put a substantial portion of the global population under confinement, imposed isolation, and established ‘social distancing’ as a new global behavioral norm. The COVID-19 crisis has affected [...]
The genomic revolution and species delimitation in birds (and other organisms): gene flow matters, but what about other evolutionary forces?
Published: 2020-04-09
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences
Given the notion that species are population-level lineages and the availability of genomic data to identify separately evolving populations, researchers usually establish species limits based on gene flow or lack thereof. A strict focus on gene flow as the main –or only– criterion to delimit species involves two main complications in practice. First, approaches often used to apply this criterion [...]
Understanding the tripartite approach to Bayesian divergence time estimation
Published: 2020-04-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Placing evolutionary events in the context of geological time is a fundamental goal in paleobiology and macroevolution. In this article we describe the tripartite model used for Bayesian estimation of time calibrated phylogenetic trees. The model can be readily separated into its component models: the substitution model, the clock model and the tree model. We provide an overview of the most [...]
Facultative predation can alter the ant-aphid population
Published: 2020-04-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Although ant--aphid interactions are the most typical example of mutualism between insect species, some studies suggest that ant attendance is not always advantageous for the aphids because they may pay a physiological cost. In this study, we propose a new mathematical model of an ant--aphid system considering the costs of ant attendance. It includes both mutualism and predation. In the model, we [...]
The “intestines of the soil”: the taxonomic and functional diversity of earthworms – a review for young ecologists
Published: 2020-04-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Earthworms are some of the most important and popular soil organisms. Their essential roles in ecosystems have not only been recognized by Aristotle, Charles Darwin, and many active scientists around the globe, but also by land managers, farmers, and gardeners. However, many people do not know how diverse earthworms are in terms of their form and function. Here we summarize the current knowledge [...]