Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Navigating Spatial Trade-offs in Restoration Planning: A Multi-Objective Optimization Framework Integrating Ecological Feasibility
Published: 2026-05-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecosystem restoration requires decision-support tools capable of balancing ecological benefits under limited resources while explicitly accounting for the long-term likelihood of restoration success. Despite its recognized importance, ecological feasibility has rarely been formulated as an optimization objective in spatial planning, typically being treated only as a constraint or biophysical [...]
The effectiveness of overwintering Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) in cold-dry storage
Published: 2026-05-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
In the northernmost part of the Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) range, oyster farmers face challenges maintaining stock through freezing winters. To avoid leaving oysters exposed to variable field conditions, many farmers overwinter oysters outside of the water in cold-dry storage (CDS). Here, we sought to add to the limited but growing empirical research examining the effectiveness of CDS [...]
From Individuals to Networks: The Role of Variation in Plant-Pollinator Communities' Responses to Global Change
Published: 2026-05-28
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
1. Plant–pollinator communities are critical for biodiversity, ecosystem function, and human well-being. Yet our ability to predict divergent species responses to environmental change, the risk of abrupt collapse, or the potential for recovery in plant-pollinator systems remains limited. 2. Here, we argue that individual variation within species may play a critical but underappreciated role in [...]
Bayesian adaptive design for citizen science data collection: Exploring tensions between data and design
Published: 2026-05-28
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
1. Bayesian adaptive design can be applied in spatial settings where future survey locations need to be selected based on already available data. An important use case of adaptive design is the recommendation of locations for opportunistic, citizen science collection of species observation data, where some areas are already overrepresented and others are severely undersampled. 2. This work [...]
Inferring genomic landscapes with the integrative sequentially Markov coalescent (iSMC)
Published: 2026-05-28
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Biology, Computational Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences
The integrative Sequentially Markovian Coalescent (iSMC) is an extension of the sequentially Markovian Coalescent (SMC) model allowing for parameter heterogeneity along the genome, such as recombination and mutation rates. Heterogeneous parameters follow an autocorrelation process that modulates the genealogical process, extending the hidden state space and adding as few as two extra parameters [...]
A viral mimic increases body temperature but does not affect mass or inflammation in a wild frugivorous bat
Published: 2026-05-28
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences
The acute phase response is a component of innate immunity that helps fight infections. Understanding variation in this response is particularly critical in bats, which can be asymptomatic hosts of pathogens that cause disease in other animals. Although bats are most famously tolerant of viruses, research on the bat acute phase response has focused predominantly on bacterial antigens. To improve [...]
Precision Microbiome Stewardship: Moving Aquaculture from Transient Supplementation to Systemic Resilience
Published: 2026-05-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Ecological and evolutionary dynamics of chlamydiae endosymbionts in social amoeba host communities
Published: 2026-05-25
Subjects: Life Sciences
Endosymbiotic interactions have played fundamental roles in shaping the evolution of complex eukaryotes. However, how ecological processes shape endosymbioses that are still segregating in host populations have been less described. Here, we characterize the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of chlamydiae bacterial endosymbionts in dictyostelid social amoeba host communities. Our survey of over [...]
Towards a standard model for teaching the process of biological evolution
Published: 2026-05-25
Subjects: Education, Life Sciences
Evolution is widely considered to be one of the cornerstones of the biological sciences. Despite this importance, the process of biological evolution remains widely misunderstood among students, illustrating that evolution education is in need of an educational synthesis. The current paradigm for teaching the evolutionary process revolves around using population genetics models to illustrate the [...]
Primary and secondary invasion pathways: why the distinction matters
Published: 2026-05-25
Subjects: Life Sciences
The pathways through which non-native species are introduced and spread help shape the rate and geographic patterns of biological invasions. These pathways can be classified as primary, where non-native species cross jurisdictional or biogeographic boundaries, or secondary, where species move within these boundaries after introduction. Despite fundamental economic, political, social, and [...]
A systematic review on the effectiveness of salmonid spawning habitat improvements, and recommendations to potentially increase productivity of depressed Newfoundland Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations
Published: 2026-05-23
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology
When dangerous predators are ignored: antipredator responses in temporary-pond amphibians
Published: 2026-05-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Antipredator behaviour is recognised as a key factor of reintroduction success, yet it remains poorly considered in conservation practice. Despite their conservation relevance, little is known about antipredator behaviour in Pelobatidae tadpoles, among which the endangered Italian lineage of common spadefoot toad Pelobates fuscus has been the target of several captive breeding and reintroduction [...]
Synthetic biology as an empirical tool for evolutionary theory
Published: 2026-05-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Evolutionary biology has traditionally inferred process from patterns in extant organisms and the fossil record, leaving many foundational questions constrained by their historical nature. Over the past two decades, synthetic and high-throughput approaches — including deep mutational scanning, genome editing, ancestral sequence reconstruction, engineered mutators, and random-sequence assays — [...]
A fine-grained behavior-based approach to estimating the probability of collision between moving vehicles and birds
Published: 2026-05-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Collisions between animals and vehicles contribute to biodiversity loss, threaten human safety, and have economic consequences. Escape responses of wildlife to vehicles are a critical factor in determining whether a collision occurs. However, presently species-specific vulnerability estimates do not consider the species escape behavior, potentially resulting in inaccurate mortality estimates. [...]
The holobiont is not a useful model for most host-microbiome interactions
Published: 2026-05-21
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences
The holobiont concept refers to a host and associated microbes. It has been critiqued over the last decade, primarily based on the argument that individual holobionts are not an appropriate level for analyzing multi-generation host dynamics, as most microbes are acquired from the environment. Several responses were given to this and other criticisms. The main response has been that the holobiont [...]