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518 results for “life history traits”
Data from: Meroplankton diversity, seasonality and life-history traits across the Barents Sea Polar Front revealed by high-throughput DNA barcoding
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Landscape composition and life‐history traits influence bat movement and space use: Analysis of 30 years of published telemetry data
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Data from: Winner-loser effects on life history traits
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On the genetic architecture of rapidly adapting and convergent life history traits in guppies
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Linking spatial variations in life-history traits to environmental conditions across American black bear populations
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The evolutionary loss of paternal care is associated with shifts in female life history traits
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Heatwave effects on the behavior and life history traits of sedentary antlions
Research on the behavioral responses of animals to extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, is lacking even though their frequency and intensity in nature are increasing. Here, we investigated the behavioral response to a simulated heatwave in two species of antlions (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontidae). These insects spend the majority of their lives as larvae and live in sandy areas suitable for a trap-building hunting strategy. We used larvae of <i>Myrmeleon bore</i> and <i>Euroleon nostras</i>, which are characterized by different microhabitat preferences – sunlit in the case of <i>M. bore</i> and shaded in the case of <i>E. nostras</i>. Larvae were exposed to fluctuating temperatures (40ºC for 10 hours daily and 25ºC for the remaining time) or a constant temperature (25ºC) for an entire week. We found increased mortality of larvae under heat. We detected a reduction in the hunting activity of larvae under heat, which corresponded to changes in the body mass of individuals. Furthermore, we found long-term consequences of the simulated heatwave, as it prolonged the time larvae needed to molt. These effects were pronounced in the case of <i>E. nostras</i> but did not occur or were less pronounced in the case of <i>M. bore</i>, suggesting that microhabitat-specific selective pressures dictate how well antlions handle heatwaves. We thus present results demonstrating the connection between behavior and the subsequent changes to fitness-relevant traits in the context of a simulated heatwave. These results illustrate how even closely related species may react differently to the same event.
Data from: Metabolic rate shapes phenotypic covariance among physiological, behavioural, and life history traits in honeybees
<p>Metabolic rate is often cited as the fundamental rate that determines the rate of all biological processes by shaping energetic availability for the various behavioral and life history traits that contribute to performance. It has therefore been suggested that metabolic rate drives the widely observed covariance among these different levels of phenotypic traits. However, much of the work on this topic has relied on pairwise correlational analysis, thereby leaving an important gap in our understanding regarding the functional links that shape this phenotypic covariance, often referred to as pace-of-life. Using honeybees as an experimental model, we measured a large number of behavioural, life history and physiological traits in individual bees and used a structural equation model to characterize the phenotypic covariance structure among these traits. Following this with a path analysis, we demonstrate that variation in metabolic rate plays a fundamental proximate role in driving this phenotypic covariance structure in honeybees. We discuss the importance of these findings in the context of how interindividual variation in terms of slow-fast phenotypes may drive the phenotype of a group and the functional role metabolic rate might play in shaping division of labour and social evolution.</p>
Life history traits and abundance of Northeast Atlantic fish
<p>Life history characteristics such as asymptotic length <i>L</i><sub><i>∞</i></sub>, growth rate<i> K</i>, the length at which 50% of the individuals have reached maturity <i>L</i><sub><i>mat</i></sub>, and natural mortality <i>M</i> are therefore often used to indicate the sensitivity of different species to fishing. When species-specific information is missing, an estimate of the maximum length<i> L<sub>max</sub></i> of a species can be used to infer asymptotic length, growth rate, natural mortality, and proportion mature at length. Here, we provide a data base containing life history parameters of 271 species along with the references of these values and gear efficiency estimates for all species. Further, we provide average annual catch indices within inhabitated areas for each species. </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>
Data from: Fast life history traits promote invasion success in amphibians and reptiles
Competing theoretical models make different predictions on which life history strategies facilitate growth of small populations. While 'fast' strategies allow for rapid increase in population size and limit vulnerability to stochastic events, 'slow' strategies and bet-hedging may reduce variance in vital rates in response to stochasticity. We test these predictions using biological invasions since founder alien populations start small, compiling the largest dataset yet of global herpetological introductions and life history traits. Using state-of-the-art phylogenetic comparative methods, we show that successful invaders have fast traits, such as large and frequent clutches, at both establishment and spread stages. These results, together with recent findings in mammals and plants, support 'fast advantage' models and the importance of high potential population growth rate. Conversely, successful alien birds are bet-hedgers. We propose that transient population dynamics and differences in longevity and behavioural flexibility can help reconcile apparently contrasting results across terrestrial vertebrate classes.
Multiple traits and multifarious environments: integrated divergence of morphology and life history
<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Understanding complex responses of multiple character suites (e.g., behaviour, life history, morphology) to multifarious environments is a challenging task. Here we use a multivariate approach (partial least squares structural equation modelling) to disentangle drivers (i.e., predation, resource availability, and population demographics) of phenotypic divergence among populations of Bahamas mosquitofish (<i>Gambusia hubbsi</i>) inhabiting blue holes. We further employ a two-block partial least squares analysis in a novel approach to uncovering integrated and independent aspects of divergence in correlated character suites. Results suggest that phenotypic divergence mainly resulted from differences in predation regimes, with population demography and resource availability also influencing particular aspects of divergence. We uncovered statistically significant covariation of life histories and morphologies, and revealed that phenotypic divergence between predation regimes involved both integrated and independent responses. For instance, female life histories diverged mostly independently of morphology, although some morphological shifts (abdominal distension) resulted from changes in fecundity. In contrast, males showed strong morphological divergence independent of life history, but much of their life-history shifts reflected joint morphological changes (lean weight and body shape). Our study illustrates the utility of gathering disparate data types from multiple populations/species to understand the causes and nature of phenotypic divergence in the wild.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
Figure 2. A in Life history traits of parental care in Crenicichla lepidota (Cichliformes, Geophagini) in the upper Paraguay River basin, Brazil
Figure 2. A couple of Crenicichla lepidota defence your offspring of a non-specific predators. (A) Both Crenicichla lepidota exhibit lateral threat display towards Serrasalmus maculatus; (B) Hyphessobrycon eques (indicated by arrow) approaches offspring(indicated by arrow bottom right) while parents are warding off another Crenicichla lepidota out of shot. (C) Male Crenicichla lepidota (indicated by arrow right) notices threat and charges Hyphessobrycon eques (indicated by arrow left). (D) Cichlasoma dimerus approaches offspring and adult of Crenicichla lepidota.
Figure 1. A in Life history traits of parental care in Crenicichla lepidota (Cichliformes, Geophagini) in the upper Paraguay River basin, Brazil
Figure 1. A couple of Crenicichla lepidota defence your offspring of a conspecific predator. (A) Pair of Crenicichla lepidota with offspring (indicated by arrow) over algae bed. (B) Conspecific aggressor (indicated by arrow) approaches, parents exhibit threat display. (C) Aggressor makes strike, parents continue threat display. (D) Aggressor strikes and is concealed in algae bed. Female (indicated by arrow) moves to prevent attack but fails.
Sexual size dimorphism is associated with reproductive life history trait differentiation in coexisting sepsid flies
Organismal life histories evolve as syndromes, resulting in correlated evolutionary differentiation of key traits that ultimately aid in discerning species. Reproductive success depends both on the absolute body size of an individual and its size relative to the opposite sex: sexual size dimorphism. In an attempt to further elucidate their coexistence and ecological diversification, we compared standard life history (first reproduction, clutch size, egg size) and associated reproductive trait differentiation of 15 widespread European sepsid fly species (Diptera: Sepsidae) under laboratory common garden conditions. Despite relatively uniform body sizes, sexual dimorphism ranged from female- to male-biased, and development time varied twofold across species. We expected, and found, the abundant and relatively large species (Sepsis cynipsea, punctum, thoracica) with often male-biased SSD to lay larger but fewer eggs and show fast-developing, fast-reproducing life histories with aggressive (coercive) mating behavior characterized by short mating latencies and male conflict. In contrast, the smaller and more dispersed species with female-biased SSD (S. flavimana, orthocnemis, violacea) laid smaller but more eggs, showing a generally slower life history with long and delayed copulation and oviposition, high mating reluctance fostering extensive inter-sexual conflict, and more elaborate male (pre-)copulatory courtship. Two Saltella species were exceptional, being large, developing slowly, nevertheless copulating soon after adult emergence, profusely and briefly. The documented life history differentiation seems partly driven by sexual selection leading to male-biased dimorphism, rather than undetermined ecological selection, which regardless appears insufficient to explain the coexistence and diversification of these sepsid species in European pastoral landscapes.
Data from: Integrating life history traits into predictive phylogeography
Predictive phylogeography seeks to aggregate genetic, environmental and taxonomic data from multiple species in order to make predictions about unsampled taxa using machine-learning techniques such as Random Forests. To date, organismal trait data have infrequently been incorporated into predictive frameworks due to difficulties inherent to the scoring of trait data across a taxonomically broad set of taxa. We refine predictive frameworks from two North American systems, the inland temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest (PNW) and the Southwestern Aridlands (SWAL), by incorporating a number of organismal trait variables. Our results indicate that incorporating life history traits as predictor variables improves the performance of the supervised machine-learning approach to predictive phylogeography, especially for the SWAL system, in which predictions made from only taxonomic and climate variables meets only moderate success. In particular, traits related to reproduction (e.g., reproductive mode; clutch size) and trophic level appear to be particularly informative to the predictive framework. Predictive frameworks offer an important mechanism for integration of organismal trait, environmental data, and genetic data in phylogeographic studies.
Diet-induced plasticity of life-history traits and gene expression in outbred Drosophila melanogaster population
<p>Food is fundamental for the survival of organisms, governing growth, maintenance, and reproduction through the provision of essential macronutrients. However, access to food with optimum macronutrient composition, which will maximize the evolutionary fitness of an organism, is not always guaranteed. This leads to dietary mismatches with potential impacts on organismal performance. To understand the consequences of such dietary mismatches, we examined the effects of isocaloric diets varying in macronutrient composition on eight key organismal traits spanning across the lifespan of a large outbred <em>Drosophila melanogaster</em> population (n ~ 2500). Our findings reveal that carbohydrate-reduced isocaloric diets correlates to accelerated pre-adult development and boosts reproductive output without impacting pre-adult viability and body size. Conversely, an elevated dietary carbohydrate content correlated to reduced lifespan in flies, evidenced by accelerated functional senescence including compromised locomotor activity and deteriorating gut integrity. Furthermore, transcriptomic analysis indicated a substantial difference in gene regulatory landscapes between flies subject to high carbohydrate vs high protein diet, with elevated protein levels indicating transcriptomes primed for reduced synthesis of fatty acids. Taken together, our study helps advance our understanding of the effect of macronutrient composition on life history traits and their interrelations, offering critical insights into potential adaptive strategies that organisms might adopt against the continual dietary imbalances prevalent in the rapidly evolving environment.</p>
Data from: Landscape composition and life-history traits influence bat movement and space use: analysis of 30 years of published telemetry data
<p><span><b>Aim: </b>Animal movement determines home range patterns, which in turn affect individual fitness, population dynamics and ecosystem functioning. Using temperate bats, a group of particular conservation concern, we investigated how morphological traits, habitat specialization and environmental variables affect home range sizes and daily foraging movements, using a compilation of 30 years of published bat telemetry data.</span></p> <p><span><b>Location</b>: Northern America and Europe.</span></p> <p><span><b>Time period</b>: 1988 – 2016.</span></p> <p><span><b>Major taxa studied</b>: Bats.</span></p> <p><span><b>Methods</b>: We compiled data on home range size and mean daily distance between roosts and foraging areas at both colony and individual levels from 166 studies of 3,129 radiotracked individuals of 49 bat species. We calculated multi-scale habitat composition and configuration in the surrounding landscapes of the 165 studied roosts. Using mixed models, we examined the effects of habitat availability and spatial arrangement on bat movements, while accounting for body mass, aspect ratio, wing loading and habitat specialization.</span></p> <p><span><b>Results:</b><i> </i>We found a significant effect of landscape composition on home range size and mean daily distance at both colony and individual levels. On average, home ranges were up to 42% smaller in the most habitat-diversified landscapes while mean daily distances were up to 30% shorter in the most forested landscapes. Bat home range size significantly increased with body mass, wing aspect ratio and wing loading, and decreased with habitat specialization.</span></p> <p><span><b>Main conclusions: </b>Promoting bat movements through the landscape surrounding roosts at large spatial scales is crucial for bat conservation. Forest loss and overall landscape homogenization lead temperate bats to fly farther to meet their ecological requirements, by increasing home range sizes and daily foraging distances. Both processes might be more detrimental for smaller, habitat-specialized bats, less able to travel increasingly longer distances to meet their diverse needs.</span></p>
Deriving population scaling rules from individual-level metabolism and life history traits - Code and Data
<p>Individual metabolism generally scales with body mass with an exponent around 3/4. From dimensional arguments it follows that maximum population growth rate (rmax) scales with a -1/4 exponent. However, the dimensional argument implicitly assumes that offspring size is proportional to adult size. Here we calculate rmax from metabolic scaling at the level of individuals within size-structured populations while explicitly accounting for offspring size. We identify four general patterns of how rmax scales with adult mass based on four empirical life-history patterns employed by groups of species. These life-history patterns are determined by how traits of somatic growth rate and/or offspring mass relate to adult mass. One life-history pattern -- constant adult:offspring mass ratio and somatic growth rate independent of adult mass -- leads to the classic -1/4 scaling of rmax. The other three life-history patterns lead either to non-metabolic population growth scaling with adult mass or do not follow a power-law relationship at all. Using life-history data of five marine taxa and terrestrial mammals, we identify species groups that belong to one of each case. We predict that elasmobranchs, copepods, and mammals follow standard -1/4 power-law scaling, whereas teleost fish and bivalves do not have a pure power-law scaling. Our work highlights how taxa may deviate from the classic -1/4 metabolic scaling pattern of maximum population growth. The approach is generic and can be applied to any taxa.</p>
Data from: Plant life history traits rather than soil legacies determine colonisation of soil patches in a multi-species grassland
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Interactions between plants and soil biota are increasingly shown to play critical roles in plant species co-existence processes. Plant species co-existence is thought to be promoted via biotic legacies that plant species leave behind in the soil after a plant disappears. These soil legacies are hypothesised to supress colonisation success when the preceding plant is of the same species, that is, when a plant species encounters its own, species-specific soil antagonists.</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">However, colonisation of vacant spots in plant communities is in the first place determined by the ability of plants to reach such vacant locations. We currently lack an understanding of the explicit role of soil legacy effects and their relative contribution to colonisation processes in plant communities consisting of plant species inherently differing in colonisation ability.</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">In experimental, outdoor plant communities consisting of eight grassland species, we tested the effect of five differently conditioned soil patches on plant species colonisation success over three consecutive growing seasons. We found that colonisation success was largely determined by the species' reproductive strategy, lateral spread and growth rate, and not by the plant species that conditioned the soil patch. Fast spreading, clonal plant species reached the soil patches first and initially attained the highest biomass inside the patch. One year later, slower spreading plant species colonised the patch via seedlings. Species with intrinsically high growth rates attained the highest biomass, decreasing biomass of the initial colonisers. While subtle differences between conditioned soil patches did occur, these were not strong enough to overcome the inherent differences in colonisation ability between the various plant species.</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><strong>Synthesis:</strong><em> </em>Our results reject the hypothesis that colonisation of vacant soil patches in plant communities is strongly affected by the legacy that is left behind by the preceding plant species. Instead, plant species life history strategy plays a prominent role, driving sequential plant species replacements. Based on our results and recent accounts in literature we present a conceptual model for local cyclic dynamics in grassland communities, where soil legacy plays a role in affecting the performance of established plant species rather than colonisation of vacant patches.</p>
Breeding in the pandemic: Short-term lockdown restrictions in a European capital city did not alter the life-history traits of two urban adapters
<p><span>Humans are transforming natural habitats into managed urban green areas and impervious surfaces at an unprecedented pace. Yet the effects of human presence <em>per se</em> on animal life-history traits are rarely tested. This is particularly true in cities, where human presence is often indissociable from urbanisation itself. The onset of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, along with the resulting lockdown restrictions, offered a unique, "natural experiment" context to investigate wildlife responses to a sudden reduction of human activities. We analysed four years of avian breeding data collected in a European capital city to test whether lockdown measures altered nestbox occupancy and life-history traits in terms of egg-laying date, incubation duration, and clutch size in two urban adapters: great tits (<em>Parus major</em>) and blue tits (<em>Cyanistes caeruleus</em>). Lockdown measures, which modulated human presence, did not influence any of the life-history traits investigated. In contrast, tree cover, a distinct ecological attribute of the urban space, was positively associated with clutch size, a key avian life-history, and reproductive trait. This highlights the importance of habitat quality/ inter-year variation over human activity on the reproduction of urban wildlife. We discuss our results in light of other urban wildlife studies carried out during the pandemic, inviting the scientific community to carefully interpret all lockdown-associated shifts in biological traits.</span></p>
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.