Biology subjects

Zliobaite, I.

Publications and source records attributed to Zliobaite, I..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

2000-year fish bone record reveals transition to commercial fisheries during climatic change

Animal bones from archaeological contexts can reveal the interplay between past environments and human societies. Resource acquisition shaped many aspects of past societies and influenced the development of trade networks and migration. Fish have been a cornerstone of human subsistence for millennia, yet the rise of commercial fishing and trade was complex. Here, we synthesised a database of [~]1.9 million zooarchaeological fish records spanning 2000 years across Europe. Using machine-learning of catch compositions alongside fish thermal tolerances, we show that fisheries became less local over time, with homogenisation coinciding with Little Ice Age-associated cooling, a period of documented resource scarcity, concurring with growing trade. Moreover, increased proportions of marine taxa and more specialist marine fisheries were observed in the preceding Medieval Climate Anomaly, to sustain concurrent urban and population growth. Enhanced use of marine protein buffered food insecurity, whilst signalling the transition from localised to trans-regional trade networks.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Revisiting biogeography of livestock animal domestication

Human society relies on four main livestock animals - sheep, goat, pig and cattle, which all were domesticated at nearly the same time and place. Many arguments have been put forward to explain why these animals, place and time were suitable for domestication, but the question - why only these, but not other animals, still does not have a clear answer. Here we offer a biogeographical perspective: we survey global occurrence of large mammalian herbivore genera around 15 000 - 5 000 years before present and compile a dataset characterising their ecology, habitats and dental traits. Using predictive modelling we extract patterns from this data to highlight ecological differences between domesticated and nondomesticated genera. The most suitable for domestication appear to be generalists adapted to persistence in marginal environments of low productivity, largely corresponding to cold semi-arid climate zones. Our biogeographic analysis shows that even though domestication rates varied across continents, potentially suitable candidate animals were rather uniformly distributed across continents. We interpret this pattern as a result of an interface between cold semi-arid and hot semi-arid climatic zones. We argue that hot Semi-arid climate was most suitable for plant domestication, cold Semi-arid climate selected for animals most suitable for domestication as livestock. We propose that the rates of domestication across biogeographic realms largely reflect how much intersection between hot and cold Semi-arid climatic zones was available at each continent.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

The scaling of expansive energy under the Red Queen predicts Cope's Rule

The Red Queens hypothesis portrays evolution as a never-ending competition for expansive energy, where one species gain is another species loss. The Red Queen is neutral with respect to body size, implying that neither small nor large species have a universal competitive advantage. The maximum population growth in ecology; however, clearly depends on body size - the smaller the species, the shorter the generation length, and the faster it can expand. Here we ask whether, and if so how, the Red Queens hypothesis can accommodate a spectrum of body sizes. We theoretically analyse scaling of expansive energy with body mass and demonstrate that in the Red Queens zero-sum game for resources, neither small nor large species have a universal evolutionary advantage. We argue that smaller species have an evolutionary advantage only when resources in the environment are not fully occupied, such as after mass extinctions or following key innovations allowing expansion into freed up or previously unoccupied resource space. Under such circumstances, we claim, generation length is the main limiting factor for population growth. When competition for resources is weak, smaller species can indeed expand faster, but to sustain this growth they also need more resources. In the Red Queens realm, where resources are fully occupied and the only way for expansion is to outcompete other species, acquisition of expansive energy becomes the limiting factor and small species lose their physiological advantage. A gradual transition from unlimited resources to a zero-sum game offers a direct mechanistic explanation for observed body mass trends in the fossil record, known as Copes Rule. When the system is far from the limit of resources and competition is not maximally intense, small species take up ecological space faster. When the system approaches the limits of its carrying capacity and competition tightens, small species lose their evolutionary advantage and we observe a wider range of successful body masses, and, as a result, an increase in the average body mass within lineages.

evolutionary biology↗