Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
NAHPU: An integrated approach to natural history data acquisition and management in the extended specimen era
Published: 2026-11-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
Natural history museums collect, curate, and distribute the data that underpin biodiversity science. Modern, holistic collection practices have increased the number of specimen parts, associated parasites, and derivative digital assets, challenging researchers to maintain data integrity for a vast set of data types representing the extended specimen. We developed the NAHPU digital field catalog [...]
Movement-surface interactions of flying insects in three-dimensional space
Published: 2026-11-09
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Three-dimensional movement is increasingly measurable for flying insects. However, modelling approaches have lagged behind, limiting mechanistic understanding of how flight behaviour influences interception by planar trapping surfaces. We simulate insect movement in three-dimensional space using biased and correlated random walks, distinguishing panel contact from edge leakage and accounting for [...]
Evolutionary origins of a latitudinal plant height gradient
Published: 2026-11-09
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Latitudinal gradients are among the most pervasive patterns in biodiversity, yet their evolutionary origins remain poorly understood, especially in plants. Here we identify a latitudinal gradient in plant height within cacti, an iconic and rapidly evolving plant family spanning the Americas, with taller species inhabiting warmer, lower latitudes. To uncover how this gradient arose, we [...]
MetaWeave: a reproducible framework for the spatial inference of ecological networks
Published: 2026-11-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
A regional species-interaction network, or metaweb, describes interactions that potentially occur among species within a region. MetaWeave is an R package that combines regional metawebs, local species assemblages, and alternative interaction models to reconstruct local networks. Its main feature is to separate the effects of interaction assumptions from changes in community composition. We [...]
Vulnerability of Atlantic salmon to climate warming across the life cycle
Published: 2026-11-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Climate change is inducing more frequent and severe heat waves than organisms have encountered in recent evolutionary history. Predicting the consequences of extreme temperatures for biodiversity depends on understanding how thermal tolerance varies within species, yet this is limited by a lack of empirical data across all life stages, particularly those predicted to be most vulnerable: embryos [...]
The Geography of Speciation Across Andean-Centred Clades
Published: 2026-11-06
Subjects: Evolution, Life Sciences
Aim: Mountains harbour a disproportionate share of global biodiversity, yet the geographic pathways through which this diversity arises remain debated. In the Andes, diversification has been linked both to geographic isolation generated by complex topography and climatic dynamics, and to ecological divergence across steep environmental gradients. Here, we assess the predominant geographic modes [...]
Seven myths about causal inference in ecology: clarifications and common ground
Published: 2026-11-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Identifying and quantifying causal relationships from data is a central goal in ecology and conservation. To achieve this goal, ecologists are increasingly applying frameworks and methods from the broader, multidisciplinary causal inference literature. These applications have generated both enthusiasm and skepticism. Here, we address seven common sources of skepticism that we see as myths. Much [...]
Marine Group II Archaea: A Review with a Focus on the Arctic Ocean
Published: 2026-11-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology
Marine Group II (MGII) archaea are among the most abundant planktonic archaea in the global ocean, yet no cultured representative exists, and most of what is known about them comes from 16S rRNA gene surveys and metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). Here we review the taxonomy, biogeography, physiology, and metabolism of MGII archaea, now proposed as the order Candidatus Poseidoniales, with its [...]
Can't see the forbs for the grasses – Forb ecology in Indian grasslands
Published: 2026-11-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Grasslands are one of the world's most widespread and diverse ecosystems. However, ecological research in grasslands has largely focused on grasses and woody plants, while forbs, which are non-graminoid herbaceous plants, are often overlooked despite their considerable contributions to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of grasslands. In this review we synthesize current knowledge on the [...]
BioCosmos: computer vision and large language models for large-scale image-based biodiversity data and trait exploration
Published: 2026-11-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Millions of natural history specimen images are now online, but poor discoverability keeps their rich phenotypic and evolutionary data out of reach for most users. We developed BioCosmos, a web platform that combines conventional biodiversity databases with emerging computer vision and large language models for image retrieval, visual feature recognition, and natural language queries. Its first [...]
Resurrecting host–microbiome interactions: combining resurrection ecology and microbiome transplants to test temporal local adaptation
Published: 2026-11-03
Subjects: Life Sciences
Host-associated microbiomes can influence fitness, respond rapidly to environmental change, and potentially contribute to host adaptation. Yet, determining whether host–microbiome associations evolve adaptively over ecological timescales remains challenging because historical host genotypes and their associated microbial communities are rarely available for experimental comparison. Resurrection [...]
Mixed evidence that protected areas slow declines of threatened plant species in Germany
Published: 2026-11-03
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. A central credo of plant conservation is that the most effective way to protect native plants is to conserve the habitats in which they occur. Protected areas are therefore a cornerstone of plant conservation, and much research has focused on optimizing their representativeness across species. Far fewer studies, however, have tested whether protected populations actually persist over time. [...]
Cave spider trophic dynamics, network structure and competition: cave zone, taxonomy and bat presence drive hypogean interactions
Published: 2026-11-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Zoology
Cave ecosystems are shaped by unique environmental constraints, influencing species distributions and trophic interactions. Spiders are often the dominant predators in caves, but their diet is restricted by local parameters that likely intensify competition and other intraguild interactions, including the confinement of energy flows to detrital and chemoautotrophic pathways. The hypogean [...]
The Apparent Urban Advance in Juvenile Vulpes vulpes Observations Diminishes after Accounting for Switzerland's Elevational Structure
Published: 2026-11-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Urbanization can alter wildlife life cycles, but comparisons between more and less urbanized environments may be confounded by other environmental gradients. This study analyzed 4295 human-reported observations of \textit{Vulpes vulpes} from 496 generalized \(5 \times 5\ \mathrm{km}\) cells across Switzerland between 2018 and 2024 to estimate when the probability that a spring record contained [...]
Exploring exploration: A multidimensional analysis of exploration across standardised and semi-natural contexts in rats
Published: 2026-11-02
Subjects: Life Sciences
Exploration is a major personality trait in animals that reflects individual differences in gathering information about environmental features relevant to survival and reproduction. Yet, exploration is commonly assessed using brief standardised tests, which provide a convenient but artificial experimental setting. Whether such measures reflect how individuals explore complex and changing [...]