Biological Sciences: Recent submissions
Now showing items 21-40 of 121
A test of reproductive power in snakes
(2022-12-06)
Reproductive power is a contentious concept among ecologists, and the model has been criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds. Despite these criticisms, the model has successfully predicted the modal (optimal) size ...
Fluctuating environments hinder the ability of female lizards to choose suitable nest sites for their embryos
(2022-11-07)
Nesting behavior is an important part of reproduction that affects maternal fitness. Females of most oviparous species choose microhabitats for nesting that have positive effects on embryo development. However, choosing ...
BAM files associated with Macaca arctoides hybridization analysis
(2022-10-12)
Genital divergence is thought to contribute to reproductive barriers by establishing a “lock-and-key" mechanism for reproductive compatibility. One such example, Macaca arctoides, the bear macaque, has compensatory changes ...
Reduced Mitochondrial Respiration in Hybrid Asexual Lizards
(2022-09-20)
The scarcity of asexual reproduction in vertebrates alludes to an inherent cost. Several groups of asexual vertebrates exhibit lower endurance capacity (a trait predominantly sourced by mitochondrial respiration) compared ...
Amphibian Speciation Rates Support a General Role of Mountains as Biodiversity Pumps
(2022-09-20)
Continental mountain areas cover <15% of global land surface, yet these regions concentrate >80% of global terrestrial diversity. One prominent hypothesis to explain this pattern proposes that high mountain diversities ...
Expansion of the Range of the Introduced Greenhouse Frog, Eleutherodactylus planirostris, in Coastal Alabama
(2022-09-16)
Eleutherodactylus planirostris (Greenhouse Frog), originally from Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Florida Keys, has been introduced to mainland Florida and has spread across the southeastern US. We used automated recording ...
Are we underestimating the genetic variances of dimorphic traits?
(2022-09-16)
Populations often contain discrete classes or morphs (e.g., sexual dimorphisms, wing dimorphisms, trophic dimorphisms) characterized by distinct patterns of trait expression. In quantitative genetic analyses, the different ...
Severe mammal declines coincide with proliferation of invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park
(2022-09-15)
Invasive species represent a significant threat to global biodiversity and a substantial economic burden. Burmese pythons, giant constricting snakes native to Asia, now are found throughout much of southern Florida, including ...
Bird assemblage response to restoration of fire‐suppressed longleaf pine sandhills
(2022-09-15)
The ecological restoration of fire‐suppressed habitats may require a multifaceted approach. Removal of hardwood trees together with reintroduction of fire has been suggested as a method of restoring fire‐suppressed longleaf ...
Long-Term Decrease in Coloration: A Consequence of Climate Change?
(2022-09-15)
Climate change has been shown to affect fitness-related traits in a wide range of taxa; for instance, warming leads to phenological advancements in many plant and animal species. The influence of climate change on social ...
Reproductive Value and the Stochastic Demography of Age-Structured Populations
(2022-09-15)
The dynamics of an age-structured population in a fluctuating environment is determined by the stochastic individual contributions from annual survival and fecundity to the total reproductive value of the population the ...
Frequency of Occurrence and Population-Dynamic Consequences of Different Forms of Density-Dependent Emigration
(2022-08-02)
Emigration is a fundamental process affecting species' local, regional, and large-scale dynamics. The paradigmatic view in ecology is that emigration is density independent (DIE) or positive density dependent (1DDE). ...
The demographic basis of population regulation in Columbian ground squirrels
(2022-07-29)
Environmental factors influence the dynamics and regulation of biological populations through their influences on demographic variables, but demographic mechanisms of population regulation have received little attention. ...
The evolution of signal design in manakin plumage ornaments
(2022-07-29)
Animal signals are characterized by two design components: efficacy (detectability) and content (message being conveyed). Selection for efficient signal perception should favor the evolution of traits that exhibit an optimal ...
An Overlooked Hotspot? Rapid Biodiversity Assessment Reveals a Region of Exceptional Herpetofaunal Richness in the Southeastern United States
(2022-07-29)
We conducted a competitive bioblitz survey in four Georgia counties to raise awareness of a unique and species rich herpetofauna in the Pine Mountain/ Fall Line Sandhills Region of Georgia, and compared documented species ...
Visitors to Southeastern Hawkmoth Flowers
(2022-07-29)
- Despite global concern for the status of animal pollinators, studies on
pollination systems in the southeastern United States are disproportionately low
compared to the diversity of this region. For example, sphingophilous, ...
Biomechanical factors influencing successful self-righting in the pleurodire turtle Emydura subglobosa
(2022-07-29)
Self-righting performance is a key ability for most terrestrial animals, and has been used as a metric of fitness, exhaustion and thermal limits in a variety of taxa. However, there is little understanding of the underlying ...
The Vitamin A-Redox Hypothesis: A Biochemical Basis for Honest Signaling via Carotenoid Pigmentation
(2022-07-29)
Trade-offs in resource allocation have been widely stated as the means by which the honesty of ornamental traits is maintained, but an alternative to this resource trade-off hypothesis is that production of ornamentation ...