Biology subjects

Genovart, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Genovart, M..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Ecological networks balance connectivity with flexibility to perturbations

The complexity-stability debate in ecology remains unresolved in part because its empirical basis is limited. Most evidence for the predicted decline of connectance with species richness comes from food webs, leaving unclear whether this pattern extends across the full spectrum of ecological interactions. Moreover, existing results remain conceptually unresolved: connectance decreases with diversity, yet both the total number of interactions and the number of interactions per species increase. Here, we analyze 1,500 ecological interaction networks spanning diverse habitats and interaction types. We show that these patterns are broadly shared across ecological interaction networks and can be interpreted through a recent theory of information dynamics in complex networks, in which sparsity is favored by a trade-off between signal propagation and response diversity. Our results suggest that the structural component of the debate may indeed reflect a general architectural regularity of ecological communities rather than a contradiction between theory and nature.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2026

A demographic framework for assessing population vulnerability to contrasting perturbation regimes

Environmental change affects demographic rates through perturbations that differ in magnitude, duration, and frequency, yet their consequences for population vulnerability, i.e., potential population reduction, remain only partly understood. Here, we develop a general demographic framework that unifies pulse and press perturbations to better understand how life-history strategy shapes population declines across the fast-slow continuum. Using matrix population models for 12 plant and animal species with diverse generation time and life history strategies, we simulated perturbations acting independently on adult survival, juvenile survival, and fecundity, and measured their demographic consequences over comparable life-history timescales. We then integrated impacts across perturbation regimes to derive a novel comparative vulnerability metric and related this metric to species life-history descriptors. Across taxa, perturbations to adult survival consistently produced the strongest demographic impacts, with vulnerability increasing markedly towards slower life histories. Juvenile survival emerged as the main axis of demographic differentiation among species, whereas the effects of perturbations on fecundity were weaker and comparatively homogeneous across the continuum. Generation time strongly predicted vulnerability to survival perturbations, but not to reproductive output. Consistent with previous theoretical and empirical work, our results show that vulnerability is not a fixed species property, but an emergent outcome of the interaction between the perturbed vital rate, the temporal structure of environmental forcing, and the underlying life-history strategy. Importantly, as the vulnerability metric can be compared both across populations under a given perturbation regime and within populations across perturbation types and demographic targets, the framework also provides a basis for stage-specific and regime-specific management.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Foraging Ants as Liquid Brains: Movement Heterogeneity Shapes Collective Efficiency

Liquid brains conceptualize living systems operating without central control, where collective outcomes emerge from local but dynamic interactions. Therefore, movement is expected to shape the connectivity among individuals, allowing the system to optimize its efficiency. We empirically measured ant movement behavior across large spatiotemporal scales, closely reflecting the ecology of our model species, Aphaenogaster senilis. We then incorporated this into a liquid brain framework, enabling a quantitative replication of ant foraging efficiency and their spatiotemporal dynamics. Our results highlight that a simple feedback mechanism explains the foraging patterns of this species. Indeed, such feedback is modulated by adjusting the proportion of two coexisting movement behaviors: while the recruits facilitated information transfer and food exploitation by aggregating closely to the nest, the scouts mostly bypassed this feedback, enabling the discovery of alternative food sources. These findings underscore how complex systems frameworks can benefit from empirical insights, enhancing our understanding of the mechanisms underlying collective intelligence in biological systems.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

The genome of the Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus), a Critically Endangered seabird: a valuable resource for evolutionary and conservation genomics

The Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) is the most threatened seabird in Europe. The fossil record suggests that human colonisation of the Balearic Islands resulted in a sharp decrease of the population size. Currently, populations continue to be decimated mainly due to predation by introduced mammals and bycatch in longline fisheries, and some studies predict their extinction by 2070. We present the first high-quality reference genome for the species which was obtained by a combination of short and long-read sequencing. Our hybrid assembly includes 4,169 scaffolds, with a scaffold N50 of 2.1 Mbp, a genome length of 1.2 Gbp, and BUSCO completeness of 96%, which is amongst the highest across sequenced avian species. This reference genome allowed us to study critical aspects relevant to the conservation status of the species, such as an evaluation of overall heterozygosity levels and the reconstruction of its historical demography. Our phylogenetic analysis using whole-genome information resolves current uncertainties in the order Procellariiformes systematics. Comparative genomics analyses uncover a set of candidate genes that may have played an important role into the adaptation to a pelagic lifestyle of Procellariiformes, including those for the enhancement of fishing capabilities, night vision and the development of natriuresis. This reference genome will be the keystone for future developments of genetic tools in conservation efforts for this Critically Endangered species.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2019

Changes in social cohesion in a long-lived species under a perturbation regime

O_LIUnderstanding the behaviour of a population under perturbations is crucial and can help to mitigate the effects of global change. Sociality can influence the dynamics of behavioural processes and plays an important role on populations resilience. However little is known about the effects of perturbations on the social cohesion of group-living animals.\nC_LIO_LITo explore the strength of social cohesion and its dynamics under perturbations, we studied an ecological system involving a colonial, long-lived species living in a site experiencing a shift to a perturbed regime. This regime, caused by the invasion of predators, led this colony to hold from 70% to only 3% of the total world population in only one decade. Because birds breed aggregated in discrete and annually changing patches within large colonies, we could disentangle whether annual aggregation was random or resulted from social bonding among individuals. Our goals were 1) to uncover if there was any long-term social bonding between individuals and 2) to examine whether the perturbation regime affected social cohesion.\nC_LIO_LIWe explored social cohesion by means of contingency tables and, within the Social Network Analysis framework, by modeling interdependencies among observations using additive and multiplicative effects (AME) and accounted for missing data. We analysed 25 years of monitoring with an individual capture-recapture database of more than 3,500 individuals.\nC_LIO_LIWe showed that social bonding occurs over years in this species. We additionally show that social bonding strongly decreased after the perturbation regime. We propose that sociality and individual behavioural heterogeneity have been playing a major role driving dispersal and thus population dynamics over the study period.\nC_LIO_LIPerturbations may lead not only to changes in individuals behaviours and fitness but also to a change in populations social cohesion. The demographic consequences of the breaking down of social bonds are still not well understood, but they can be critical for population dynamics of social species. Further studies considering individual heterogeneity, sociality and different types of perturbations should be carried out to improve our understanding on the resilience of social species.\nC_LI

ecology↗