Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Research Methods in Life Sciences
Miocene ant-mealybug trophobiosis imaged with X-Ray micro-computed tomography
Published: 2024-10-26
Subjects: Paleobiology, Paleontology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Amber is a remarkable preserving medium for Mesozoic and Cenozoic terrestrial biotas, but even when transparency is good, available viewing angles can be limited. The technique of X-ray micro-computed tomography allows inspection from any desired viewpoint and facilitates detailed anatomical measurements, avoiding parallax errors. Here, I show the use of this technique to study an extremely rare [...]
Filter, Heat, Spin: A Simple and Inexpensive Method for DNA Preparation from Freshwater for use in High-Throughput Molecular Source Tracking
Published: 2024-09-04
Subjects: Research Methods in Life Sciences
Molecular source tracking (MST) can improve community health by enabling the identification of the source species of fecal bacteria contamination in waterways. However, widespread adoption of this method at a large scale is hindered by the cost of commercial extraction kits and the technical expertise required to use them. We developed a simpler, highly efficient, scalable, accessible, and [...]
Accuracy of UAV mapping of Natura 2000 forest, wetland and grassland habitats: Do we need more seasons or more spectral bands?
Published: 2023-09-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Mapping and monitoring of Natura 2000 habitats (Habitat Directive 92/43/EEC) is one of the key activities to ensure the protection of natural habitats in Europe. Remote sensing can help to acquire high-quality maps of the distribution and conservation status of Natura 2000 habitats, for example through classifying multispectral data. However, due to the high number of habitats (classes) [...]
Who are the hyper prolific authors in environmental sciences?
Published: 2023-01-01
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Library and Information Science, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Hyper prolific scientists are individuals who produce an exceptionally large number of scientific papers, often at a rate that is much higher than their peers. While productivity is generally a positive attribute in the scientific community, hyper prolific scientists may raise concerns about the quality and impact of their research. It is important to carefully evaluate the work of hyper prolific [...]
Plant Breeding Biomolecular Classification in Quantum Bayesianism (QBism) Physics-Informed Neural Network Architecture
Published: 2022-08-31
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Climate, Other Statistics and Probability, Plant Sciences, Probability, Quantum Physics, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Soil Science, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, Sustainability, Systems Biology
In this brief communication, biomolecular plant breeding multi-classification inference is discussed when leveraging the advantages of Physics-informed Neural Network (PiNN) architecture. Albeit, the expected utility of Partial Differential Equation (PDE) inspired neural networks resides in its performance under limited data availability; a variety of neural network configurations result from PDE [...]
Filtering ground noise from LiDAR returns produces inferior models of forest aboveground biomass in heterogenous landscapes
Published: 2021-12-14
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Airborne LiDAR has become an essential data source for large-scale, high-resolution modeling of forest aboveground biomass and carbon stocks, enabling predictions with much higher resolution and accuracy than can be achieved using optical imagery alone. Ground noise filtering – that is, excluding returns from LiDAR point clouds based on simple height thresholds – is a common practice meant to [...]
Correlative Microscopy: a tool for understanding soil weathering in modern analogues of early terrestrial biospheres
Published: 2021-03-18
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Geology, Paleobiology, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Sedimentology, Soil Science
Correlative imaging provides a method of investigating complex systems by combining analytical (chemistry) and imaging (tomography) information across dimensions (2D-3D) and scales (centimetres-nanometres). We studied weathering processes in a modern cryptogamic ground cover (CGC) from Iceland, containing early colonizing, and evolutionary ancient, communities of mosses, lichens, fungi, and [...]
An open, scalable, and flexible framework for automated aerial measurement of field experiments
Published: 2020-05-24
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Engineering, Life Sciences, Plant Breeding and Genetics Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Unoccupied areal vehicles (UAVs or drones) are increasingly used in field research. Drones capable of routinely and consistently capturing high quality imagery of experimental fields have become relatively inexpensive. However, converting these images into scientifically useable data has become a bottleneck. A number of tools exist to support this workflow, but there is no framework for making [...]
Realistic and simplified models of plant and leaf area indices for a seasonally dry tropical forest
Published: 2019-08-06
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Leaf Area Index (LAI) models that consider all phenological stages have not been developed for the Caatinga, the largest seasonally dry tropical forest in South America. LAI models that are currently used show moderate to high covariance when compared to in situ data, but they often lack accuracy in the whole spectra of possible values and do not consider the impact that the stems and branches [...]