Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Tagged for life? Retention rates and effects on growth and condition of tagging - a long-term field study on PIT- and Carlin tagging in European eel
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Different types of tags and markers are commonly used for various fish monitoring and tracking purposes. Effects of tags and markers on fish and the retention rates can affect the interpretation of mark-recapture data on both the individual (e.g. growth and body condition) and population level (e.g. survival and pro-duction estimates), making studies of this issue important. In this study, we [...]
Modelling the current and future potential distribution areas of Columba albitorques in Ethiopia
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
Understanding species’ responses to climate change is essential for predicting future biodiversity patterns and informing conservation strategies. However, in Ethiopia, the impacts of climate change on bird distributions remain poorly documented. This study utilized the MaxEnt model to predict the current and future distribution of the White-collared Pigeon (Columba albitorques) under different [...]
Meeting the Demand: Aligning Marine Biodiversity Data Supply with Policy Needs
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
The effective implementation of international, regional, and national commitments on marine biodiversity depends on reliable data. However, there is often a disconnect between the information generated by scientists and the data explicitly required by policy processes. This review systematically examined more than thirty policy instruments and mapped over 1,000 explicit data requirements to [...]
Resilience and function: Beetles as critical drivers of global ecological processes
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Beetles (Coleoptera), among the most diverse and ecologically significant insect groups, play vital roles in ecosystem functioning and service provision. With over 300,000 described species, their adaptability - driven by traits such as elytra and diverse feeding habits enables them to occupy nearly all terrestrial niches. Beetles contribute to nutrient cycling, pollination, seed dispersal, pest [...]
From mating to sperm storage: density-dependent plasticity in pre- and post-copulatory shared mating traits
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Mating interactions depend on traits expressed jointly by males and females, yet the extent to which each sex controls variation in these shared mating traits remains unclear. Because the expression of such traits (like mating latency, copulation duration, and sperm transfer) depends on both partners, their evolution is constrained by intersexual correlations yet facilitated by behavioural [...]
Ecosystem services from shellfish reefs as a nature-based solution: a global evidence synthesis to guide restoration and policy
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Context. Shellfish reefs, comprising oysters, mussels, clams, and mixed bivalves, act as ecosystem engineers and nature-based solutions (NbS), providing supporting, regulating, provisioning, and cultural ecosystem services (ES). Yet, despite rapid growth in restoration practice, the translation of ES evidence into policy and management remains uneven across regions and taxa. 2. Objectives. We [...]
Quantifying impacts of policy and practice interventions on biodiversity and climate
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
There is urgent demand for ecosystem management interventions – targeted actions through policies and practices – that meaningfully address climate change and biodiversity loss while sustaining ecosystem delivery of water, food, fibre and fuel. Rigorous quantification of intervention outcomes is required for decision makers to identify, promote and scale effective interventions. Yet [...]
Marker-Assisted Breeding for Salt Tolerance in Rice: In Bangladesh Context.
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Salinity stress threatens rice (Oryza sativa L.) production across 1.056 million hectares of Bangladesh's coastal regions, with intensification projected due to climate change and sea-level rise. Marker-assisted breeding (MAB) has emerged as a transformative approach for developing salt-tolerant varieties, offering precision and efficiency over conventional methods. This review examines [...]
Hemitaeniochromis pumba, a new species of cichlid fish from Lake Malawi, Africa, with comments on related species.
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
A new species of haplochromine (Pseudocrenilabrini) cichlid fish, Hemitaeniochromis pumba is described from Lake Malawi, named for its outwardly angled, tusk-like oral jaw teeth, recalling those of a pig or warthog. It is assigned to the genus Hemitaeniochromis Eccles & Trewavas 1989 on the basis of its dark horizontal midlateral band, broken anteriorly but continuous posteriorly, with a [...]
Plasticity and scaling through multinucleation: a key adaptation to challenging environments
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Cell and Developmental Biology, Cell Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Multinucleate cells, single cells containing multiple nuclei in a shared cytoplasm, are found across the eukaryotic tree of life. Having evolved independently in fungi, plants, protists, and animals, they thrive in environments ranging from nutrient-poor deep-sea sediments to dynamic soil microhabitats and host tissues. Multinucleate organization enables spatial specialization without internal [...]
Unravelling the Enigma of Soil Animal Diversity: An Integrated Perspective from Functional Traits to Evolutionary History
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Why does a single square meter of forest soil harbour thousands of animal species? Fifty years after J.M. Anderson raised this question, soil ecology still struggles with a fragmented view of coexistence. Researchers often study taxonomy, functional traits, and phylogeny in isolation. Each approach adds insight but leaves gaps in the picture of soil biodiversity. In this paper, I therefore [...]
Bergenia ligulata: A Comprehensive Review of Its Phytochemistry, Pharmacology, and Public Health Potential
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences
Bergenia ligulata (Wall.) Engl., commonly known as “Pashanbheda” or “stone breaker,” is a perennial herb of the family Saxifragaceae, widely utilized in South Asian traditional medicine for the prevention and treatment of urinary and renal disorders. This review synthesizes current evidence on its ethnomedicinal relevance, phytochemical composition, pharmacological properties, and potential [...]
Reevaluating Spider Nutrition: The Essential Role of Arachidonic Acid in Captivity
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
Spiders represent one of the most ecologically diverse groups within the class Arachnida, yet their nutritional physiology remains insufficiently elucidated, despite their crucial ecological and experimental significance. In both natural and captive environments, these arthropods occupy key trophic positions that regulate ecosystem dynamics and contribute to the stability of arthropod [...]
Identification of the Cichlid Fishes of Lake Malawi/Nyasa Part 1: Cyrtocarina (the ‘benthic’ or ‘hap’ sub-radiation).
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
With an estimated 800-1000 species, the cichlid fishes of Lake Malawi represent the largest known adaptive radiation of vertebrates from a single common ancestor in a limited geographical area, in this case a single lake. They provide an outstanding opportunity to study the rapid diversification of form and function on a limited genetic background and to attempt understand why lineages vary so [...]
Specialization of bat-fly interactions at different elevations in a montane forest of Northern Peru
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
Hippoboscoidea flies exhibit highly specific ectoparasitic relationships with bats, shaped by both intrinsic factors (e.g., bat behavior) and extrinsic factors (e.g., land use). Understanding the dynamics of these parasite–host interactions is essential for uncovering co-evolutionary patterns and informing conservation strategies. To this end, we studied bat–fly interactions across different [...]