Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Experimental evaluation of the effects of bigmouth buffalo (Ictiobus cyprinellus) density on shallow lake ecosystems
Published: 2022-05-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Bigmouth buffalo (Ictiobus cyprinellus) is a large-bodied planktivore inhabiting shallow waterways in North America and subjected to unregulated harvest throughout much of their native range. Despite high harvest pressure on some populations, we know little about the ecosystem-level effects of lowering bigmouth buffalo densities. To evaluate the effect of bigmouth buffalo density on lower trophic [...]
Cutting down trees does not build prosperity: On the continued decoupling of Amazon deforestation and economic development in 21st century Brazil
Published: 2022-05-13
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Forest Management, Life Sciences, Nature and Society Relations, Remote Sensing
Background and aims: We present evidence examining spatial and temporal patterns in forest cover changes and economic progress in Brazilian Amazonia. Specifically we tested two predictions embedded in arguments used by influential interest groups: i) where there is less forest cover economic progress should increase and ii) areas with most recent deforestation should have increased economic [...]
Plant-microbe symbiosis widens the habitability range of the Daisyworld
Published: 2022-05-04
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Plant-microbe symbiosis is pervasive in the Earth's ecosystems and dates back to the early land colonisation by plants. Mutualistic partnership with rhizobia bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi promotes plant nutrition, growth and diversity, impacting important ecosystem functions. However, how the global behaviour and dynamical properties of an ecosystem are modified by plant-microbe symbiosis is [...]
Using water footprint concepts for water security assessment of a basin under anthropogenic pressures
Published: 2022-04-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
The evaluation of water shortages and pollution levels is crucial for watershed management and sustainable development. This paper proposes a water footprint (WF) sustainability assessment approach to analyse water security in a river basin under human pressures. The methodology involves a comprehensive assessment of the current water security at different spatial and temporal levels, and [...]
Maars, tuff rings, and tuff cones at the Manyara rift escarpment, Tanzania.
Published: 2022-04-14
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
About 350 maar craters, tuff rings, and tuff cones are spread along the Manyara rift escarpment, and clustered around the Hanang and Kwahara volcanoes in North Tanzania. They lie in the East African Rift, an active extensional setting, where the magma composition is moderately to highly alkaline and carbonate-rich. We present newly-collected depositional characteristic observations, grain size [...]
Can fiddler crab bioturbation activity in situ modify the distribution of microplastics in sediments and the influence on their bioaccumulation?
Published: 2022-03-25
Subjects: Life Sciences
Fiddler crabs are known as “eco-engineers” who maintain habitat health through sediment bioturbation, being able to interact with microplastics (MP) due to their daily contact with the sediment. Here, we evaluated MP contamination in mangrove substrates in Isla del Carmen, southern Gulf of Mexico, comparing MP content between burrows and pellets resulting from bioturbation and MP bioaccumulation [...]
Contribution of zooplankton nutrient recycling and effects on phytoplankton size structure in a hypereutrophic reservoir
Published: 2022-02-16
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Consumer nutrient recycling influences aquatic ecosystem functioning by altering the movement and transformation of nutrients. In hypereutrophic reservoirs, zooplankton nutrient recycling has been considered negligible due to high concentrations of available nutrients. A comparative analysis (Moody and Wilkinson, 2019) found that zooplankton communities in hypereutrophic lakes are dominated by [...]
Sediment phosphorus composition controls hot spots and hot moments of internal loading in a temperate reservoir
Published: 2022-02-05
Subjects: Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Phosphorus (P) flux across the sediment-water interface in lakes and reservoirs responds to external perturbations within the context of sediment characteristics. Lentic ecosystems experience profound spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the mechanisms that control sediment P fluxes, likely producing hot spots and hot moments of internal loading. However, spatiotemporal variation in P fluxes remains [...]
High Inter- and Intra-lake Variation in Sediment Phosphorus Pools in Shallow Lakes
Published: 2022-02-05
Subjects: Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Phosphorus (P) release from lakebed sediments may fuel phytoplankton blooms, especially in shallow waterbodies. A primary mechanism that controls internal P loading is the size and chemical composition of the sediment P pool. However, variation in sediment P within and among shallow lakes remains poorly quantified. We measured the degree of spatial heterogeneity in the size and composition of [...]
Climate Change and Ocean Acidification: Are We Just Treating The Symptoms?
Published: 2022-01-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
The human caused rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases has been seen as the driver of both climate change and ocean acidification. However recent peer reviewed papers show that, while GHG emissions are part of the problem, the primary driver of both climate change and ocean acidification is human caused ecological degradation. Curbing greenhouse gas emissions, to date, has been an abject failure [...]
Copper availability governs nitrous oxide accumulation in wetland soils and stream sediments
Published: 2021-12-15
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geochemistry, Life Sciences
Denitrification is microbially-mediated through enzymes containing metal cofactors. Laboratory studies of pure cultures have highlighted that the availability of Cu, required for the multicopper enzyme nitrous oxide reductase, can limit N2O reduction. However, in natural aquatic systems, such as wetlands and hyporheic zones in stream beds, the role of Cu in controlling denitrification remains [...]
Unusual Suspects: “Allies in the Park, Are Closer Than They Appear”
Published: 2021-12-06
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
One season, 1039 hours, as a Park Ranger at Mesa Verde National Park. Interps we are called, observing, telling stories, being stewards of the past, present and future of wildness. Wildness in the animal world is reserved to only 4% of the planets millions of animals, Wildness is why people come to the National Parks, they are the last stronghold of beauty that bears presence in each of our [...]
rassta: Raster-Based Spatial Stratification Algorithms
Published: 2021-11-17
Subjects: Agriculture, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Spatial stratification of landscapes allows for the development of efficient sampling surveys, the inclusion of domain knowledge in data-driven modeling frameworks, and the production of information relating the spatial variability of response phenomena to that of landscape processes. This work presents the rassta package as a collection of algorithms dedicated to the spatial stratification of [...]
Regional analysis of climate projections using Bias Corrected spatial disaggregated super-resolution convolutional neural networks
Published: 2021-11-04
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Climate change is very crucial for ecological systems and society. But Global climate models run at coarse spatial resolution which is difficult to do regional analysis. Regional-scale projections can be obtained by a technique called statistical downscaling which uses past data to find out the high resolution and low-resolution mapping. There are many methods for statistical downscaling of [...]
Toward the understanding of saline water intrusion and nutrient flushing in Lake Nokoué
Published: 2021-11-03
Subjects: Life Sciences
To understand the salinity dynamic at the outlet of Lake Nokoué and to simulate the nutrient flushing from this lake into the Atlantic Ocean, a 2D hydrodynamic model was designed with Mike 21. The choice of the Mike 21 was motivated by the long practice that decision-makers in Benin have with this software. The Hydrodynamics (HD) module simulated water level variations and flows in response, [...]