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Preprints

There are 2217 Preprints listed.

A users guide for understanding reptile and amphibian hydroregulation and climate change impacts

Nicholas C Wu, Rodolfo O Anderson, Amael Borzee, et al.

Published: 2025-04-18
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Human impacts on ecosystems have intensified water variability for terrestrial life, thus challenging the maintenance of water balance, or hydroregulation. The accelerated development and accessibility of technologies and computational models over the past decade have enabled researchers to predict changes in animal hydroregulation and environmental water with greater spatial and temporal [...]

Long-term monitoring strategies for ecological reclamation programmes using spatially balanced rotating panel designs

Michael Finn Curran, Blair L Robertson, Jasmine Allison, et al.

Published: 2025-04-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

1. Environmental monitoring programmes associated with ecological reclamation are critical to various stakeholder groups and important for regulatory compliance, to assess site performance, and to inform decision management. As logistical constraints are common, strategies for sampling multiple locations or large areas over time are likely to improve monitoring programmes. Rotating panel designs [...]

Low levels of extrapair paternity in the long-lived colonial Alpine swift (Tachymarptis melba)

Christoph Meier, Giulia Masoero, Maria Burger, et al.

Published: 2025-04-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

It has been suggested that a high aerial lifestyle makes it difficult for males to limit mating opportunities for their partners. This would explain the particularly high levels of extra-pair paternity (EPP) observed in swallows and swifts (Hirundinidae, Passeriformes). Here, we investigated EPP in the Alpine swift (Tachymarptis melba), whose aerial lifestyle is similar to that of the [...]

Re-revisiting the Niche Concept

Mathew Leibold, Veronica F Frans

Published: 2025-04-15
Subjects: Life Sciences

The adaptive maintenance of phenotypic polymorphism

Jay Jinsing Falk, Michael Webster, Dustin R Rubenstein

Published: 2025-04-15
Subjects: Life Sciences

Phenotypic polymorphisms have fascinated evolutionary biologists since the field’s inception, providing easily observable and quantifiable variation amenable to both empirical and theoretical study. However, a clear method for developing alternative hypotheses for the adaptive processes by which multiple morphs are maintained remains elusive. Here we review hypotheses for the maintenance of [...]

The Subtlety of Lake Superior Ciscoe Recruitment Dynamics

Mark R Vinson

Published: 2025-04-14
Subjects: Life Sciences

Objective: Lake Superior whitefish [Salmonidae: Coregoninae] have undergone high annual variability in survival to age-1 over the last 50-years, particularly within the dominant ciscoe flock of Bloater Coregonus hoyi, Cisco C. artedi, and Kiyi C. Kiyi. This work sought to determine if this variance was associated with hydrometeorological attributes that have also varied considerably over the same [...]

Disentangling Landscape Heterogeneity: Compositional, Configurational, Vertical, and Temporal Heterogeneity

Soyeon Bae, Catrin Westphal, Christian Ammer, et al.

Published: 2025-04-14
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Aim Landscape heterogeneity is a key driver of biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and resilience. However, the complex relationships among different components of heterogeneity—compositional, configurational, vertical, and temporal—remain underexplored for large areas such as at the national scale. This study examines the associations among multiple landscape heterogeneity components across [...]

Mechanistic and Phylogenetic Perspectives on Pregnancy Sickness

Daniel J Stadtmauer

Published: 2025-04-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Endocrinology, Evolution, Maternal and Child Health

Evolutionary biologists have long been fascinated by the peculiar trait of pregnancy sickness, the syndrome experienced by two-thirds of pregnant individuals which includes nausea and vomiting of pregnancy and, in 2% of cases, progresses to a pathological extreme known as hyperemesis gravidarum. With the recent discovery of the placental hormone GDF15 as the main causal factor in pregnancy [...]

Delineating freshwater fish biogeographic regions in the Philippine archipelago

Brian Wade Jamandre, Nico Jose Leander, Rodulf Anthony Balisco, et al.

Published: 2025-04-14
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

The Philippines, a biodiversity hotspot with a complex geological history, presents an ideal setting to study freshwater fish biogeography in archipelagos. Despite its ecological significance, analyses of freshwater fish distribution patterns across the archipelago remain lacking. This study addresses this knowledge gap by delineating native freshwater fish biogeographic regions in the [...]

Function of duet coordination in a territorial socially monogamous bird

Frigg Janne Daan Speelman, Emma Scheltens, Hugo Loning, et al.

Published: 2025-04-14
Subjects: Life Sciences

Duetting, a cooperative vocal behaviour performed by mated pairs, is a distinctive vocal behaviour among many species in specifically primates and birds. The exact features of duets that may make them a stronger territorial signal is still inconclusive. One hypothesis is that the precision of duet coordination can indicate the quality or dedication of a pair, and thus the degree of threat posed [...]

High spatial pair cohesion during and after breeding in a socially monogamous territorial passerine

Frigg Janne Daan Speelman, Chris Tyson, Marc Naguib, et al.

Published: 2025-04-14
Subjects: Life Sciences

Long-term social monogamy, a prevalent mating system in avian species, is often associated with increased cooperation and coordination as well as reduced sexual conflict. Although many studies have highlighted the benefits of long-term partnerships for individuals, there remains a lack of insight into how closely partners associate with one another behaviourally. To date, studies investigating [...]

Quantifying the correlation between variance components: an extension to the double-hierarchical generalised linear model

Jessica G. King, Joel L Pick, Jarrod D Hadfield

Published: 2025-04-14
Subjects: Life Sciences

1. The variational properties of biological systems are an increasing focus of current research, and statistical methods are required for drawing inferences about the processes that determine them. 2. Double-hierarchical generalised linear models (DHGLM) are ideally suited for studying variational properties since they provide a direct way of modelling the distribution of variances. 3. Although [...]

Spatial and seasonal variation in avian dietary strategies

André M. Bellvé, Reymond J. Miyajima, Marta A. Jarzyna

Published: 2025-04-14
Subjects: Life Sciences

Diet is a fundamental aspect of vertebrate life history, shaping survival, recruitment, and ultimately fitness. While spatial variation in avian dietary traits has been extensively studied, seasonal dynamics at both species and assemblage levels remain largely unexplored, hindering our ability to uncover the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms underlying biodiversity patterns. Here, we present [...]

Environmental factors have a greater influence on photosynthetic capacity in C4 plants than C4 biochemical subtypes or growth forms

Yuzhen Fan, Daniel W.A. Noble, Belinda E. Medlyn, et al.

Published: 2025-04-13
Subjects: Life Sciences

• Our understanding of how photosynthesis varies among C4 species and across different growth and measurement conditions remains limited. • We collated 1,696 CO2 response curves of net CO2 assimilation rate (A/Ci curves) from C4 species grown and measured at various environmental conditions and used these data to estimate the apparent maximum carboxylation activity of phosphoenolpyruvate [...]

Spatial scaling of functional and taxonomic diversity across ecosystems on an island

Martha Paola Barajas Barbosa, Dylan Craven, Rüdiger Otto, et al.

Published: 2025-04-11
Subjects: Life Sciences

Spatial scale influences how we perceive, quantify, and conserve multiple biodiversity facets. Like other facets of biodiversity, functional diversity is scale-dependent and varies non-linearly with taxonomic diversity. Yet, studies commonly rely on single-scale analyses, limiting our understanding of the role of spatial scale in biodiversity patterns. Here, we assessed how spatial grain and [...]

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