Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
A plain language review and guidance for modeling animal habitat-selection
Published: 2025-12-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Animal habitat selection is the process of how individual organisms disproportionately use habitat compared to what is available to them. Understanding habitat selection is important for the study of ecology and conservation. However, learning the foundations of making inference or prediction on animal habitat selection can be quite challenging. Foremost, the literature is large and highly [...]
Escaping the net: Assessing midwater gear selectivity for the Joint United States and Canada Integrated Ecosystem and Pacific hake (Merluccius productus) Acoustic-Trawl survey
Published: 2025-12-19
Subjects: Life Sciences
Acoustic-trawl surveys use trawl catches to validate the species and size composition of fish aggregations detected acoustically. However, certain sizes of fish may be more likely to escape some trawls, which can bias the size and age distribution of the catch used to estimate biomass. To quantify size-selectivity, we studied 3 midwater trawls used for the United States and Canada joint survey of [...]
Moving Target(s): One Health at changing human-livestock-wildlife interfaces in tropical ecosystems
Published: 2025-12-18
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Food Science, Life Sciences, Systems Biology
One Health approaches currently conceptualized for Western landscapes require fundamental rethinking for tropics, where human-livestock-wildlife interfaces exist as variegated mosaics rather than discrete zones. This overview examines why tropical ecosystems involve (i) Human mobility patterns shifting continuously through rural-urban migration and globalization (ii) Livestock health [...]
Reanalysis of “Historical redlining is associated with increasing geographical disparities in bird biodiversity sampling in the United States”
Published: 2025-12-18
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ellis-Soto et al. (2023, Nature Human Behaviour) investigated whether the density and completeness of bird biodiversity sampling from citizen science observations across US cities covary with 1930s neighbourhood classifications based on perceived mortgage investment risk, a practice known as “redlining”. They claimed that worst-rated neighbourhoods were the most under-sampled urban areas for bird [...]
Living on the edge: ecological and evolutionary dynamics along invasion fronts
Published: 2025-12-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
Invasion fronts are the edges of non-native species’ ranges and represent dynamic, non-equilibrium boundaries where colonization, ecological interactions, and rapid evolutionary processes converge. Although biological invasions are increasingly well studied, mechanisms operating at these advancing margins remain conceptually fragmented despite their disproportionate influence on spread dynamics, [...]
Nest construction behaviour, including the repair and re-use of a depredated nest, in the Variegated Fairy-wren (Malurus lamberti)
Published: 2025-12-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
Documenting the diversity of nest construction behaviours is essential for understanding a species’ life-history. The Variegated Fairy-wren Malurus lamberti is a socially complex species whose nest building habits remain poorly described. Here, we report three nest construction behaviors that were observed during the 2024 breeding season at our study site in south-east Queensland, which have not [...]
Scale mismatches limit the efficacy of customary management
Published: 2025-12-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Indigenous lands are some of the most biodiverse areas in the world, providing protection for many species and spillover benefits for wider communities. However, these areas face increasing threats. Indigenous communities face many challenges in protecting and managing these lands, particularly in the form of power imbalances and spatial, temporal, and functional-conceptual mismatches. 2. [...]
Fitness landscapes of biotic interactions shape the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of biodiversity
Published: 2025-12-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Biotic interactions promote, maintain or reduce diversity within and between species. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists have thus long studied links between biotic interactions and biodiversity dynamics. Yet theoretical and empirical research on these links are still separated by a substantial gap. This gap arises because empiricists rarely quantify the fitness consequences of interactions [...]
Evolving on two fronts: Oak species and syngameons
Published: 2025-12-16
Subjects: Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
William ‘Bill’ Burger wrote in 1975, “I believe that the classical species-concept in Quercus defines a very real population system and that it evolves on two fronts. One is that of continuing to adapt to a niche that differs slightly from its close relations. The second is in sharing the broader evolutionary advances of these same close relations that together comprise the genetically isolated [...]
Near-exclusive use of non-native grasses by the Variegated Fairy-wren (Malurus lamberti) in a heavily modified habitat
Published: 2025-12-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Successful breeding is a critical component of a bird’s life-history, but preferred nesting habitats remain little studied in many Australian species. In southeastern Queensland, a revegetated site shows high bird biodiversity and density, despite being dominated by invasive understory plants. Here, we describe the relative cover of grass species present (Poaceae) at our study site and determine [...]
Trends in aquatic environmental DNA research in Alaska
Published: 2025-12-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is an emerging tool with significant potential to advance biomonitoring, particularly in remote and logistically challenging environments. To evaluate the state of eDNA research in Alaska, we conducted a literature review and a regional survey. The review identified 22 peer-reviewed studies published between 2010 and 2025, while the survey of 54 individuals [...]
Business as usual will commit biodiversity to genetic erosion: parallels from climate change for proactive conservation
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
Biodiversity and climate resilience are tightly linked. Genetic diversity enables species to adapt in a rapidly changing world, yet its loss (genetic erosion) remains the least visible dimension of the biodiversity crisis. Although climate science has long recognised that past emissions can lock in future climate impacts (“committed climate change”), the idea that biodiversity also faces future, [...]
Deciphering the patterns and drivers of tardigrade diversity along altitudinal gradients
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Altitudinal gradients offer a unique opportunity to understand the drivers of species richness, as mountain regions cover vast areas and contribute disproportionately to global terrestrial biodiversity. However, most studies have focused on larger organisms, often neglecting microscopic animals such as meiofauna also in mountain biodiversity research. In this study, we investigated patterns of [...]
21st Century Small-scale Fisheries of Belize: A Legacy of Eroding Size-Spectra, Trophic Shifts and Underinvestment in Fishery Management
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
After 100 years of commercial fishing, the coastal waters of the globally significant Belize barrier reef complex are showing signs of overfishing, food web compromise and loss of biodiversity. These challenges are exacerbated by multiple ecosystem stressors including climate change and nutrient enrichment. The Government of Belize has had some success in facilitating ongoing fisheries production [...]
From Business Intelligence to Conservation Intelligence: Operationalising adaptive pest control to protect the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Resilience-Based Management (RBM) is crucial for enhancing outcomes in conservation interventions as the climate changes. To be effective it requires continuous modelling, assessment, evaluation and adjustment. Here, we adapt established Business Intelligence software into Conservation Intelligence tools to provide the near real-time analytics and a decision support system necessary for effective [...]