Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Reevaluating Global Whale Strandings: A Review of Trypanosomiasis as a Potential Cause
Published: 2025-07-17
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences
Whale mass strandings are enigmatic events with multifactorial causes. Conventional hypotheses include anthropogenic sonar exposure, navigational errors, and infectious diseases, yet many stranding events remain unexplained¹. Here we propose African trypanosomiasis (“sleeping sickness”) as an overlooked contributing factor. This perspective synthesizes evidence that Trypanosoma parasites, [...]
Substitution Models in Phylogenetic Reconstruction from Molecular Data: Theoretical Principles, Implementation and Selection Methodologies, Limits of Results Interpretation, and Recent Advances
Published: 2025-07-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
Substitution models constitute the mathematical foundation of modern phylogenetic inference, providing the probabilistic framework necessary for reconstructing evolutionary relationships from molecular sequence data. These models describe the stochastic processes governing nucleotide or amino acid changes over evolutionary time through continuous-time Markov chains, enabling maximum likelihood [...]
Habitat availability, Jurassic and Cretaceous origins of the deep-bodied shark morphotype, and the rise of pelagic sharks
Published: 2025-07-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Macroevolutionary trends in morphology fundamentally shape our understanding of marine ecosystems through deep time. Sharks (Elasmobranchii: Selachii) have been suggested to broadly exhibit two discrete body forms: one ‘shallow-bodied’ form associated with slow-moving benthic species, and a ‘deep-bodied’ form typified by highly active pelagic taxa. Until now, the validity or evolution of these [...]
Geography of masting synchrony creates more famines than feasts
Published: 2025-07-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Interannually highly variable and synchronized production of large seed crops by perennial plants, called masting, drives resource pulses and famines with cascading effects on food webs. While the spatial scale of masting synchrony is well documented, it remains unclear how synchrony differs between years of seed abundance and failure, and how such dynamics extend across species and space. These [...]
An overview of open science in eco-evo research and the publisher effect.
Published: 2025-07-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
Sharing data and code is increasingly recognized as essential for transparency and reproducibility in scientific research. This is especially critical in ecology and evolutionary biology (eco-evo), where sampling and experiments often occur in the field and can hardly be reproduced. To monitor the adoption of open science practices in eco-evo and identify key influencing factors, we analyzed [...]
Implementation of Advances in Information Technology in the Treatment of Phylogenetic Problems: Historical Considerations, Central Debates, and Obstacles Still Unresolved
Published: 2025-07-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
The field of phylogenetic inference has undergone a profound transformation through the integration of advanced information technology, evolving from traditional morphological classification systems to sophisticated computational frameworks capable of processing genomic-scale datasets. This comprehensive review examines the historical trajectory of computational phylogenetics, tracing its [...]
Ontogenetic Carnivory Drives Secondary Production Across a Productivity Gradient
Published: 2025-07-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Ontogenetic size shifts and omnivory are central to understanding consumer-resource interactions and energy flow in aquatic ecosystems. However, how these shifts and feeding behavior influence secondary production and organic matter flow remains poorly understood. 2. Here, we quantified the relationship between body size, carnivory (i.e., animal tissue consumption), secondary production, and [...]
DrawerDissect: Whole-drawer insect imaging, segmentation, and transcription using AI
Published: 2025-07-14
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
1. Natural history museums often curate large collections of pinned insects. These collections represent invaluable records of biodiversity information, ecological patterns and phenotypic variation. A common goal of museums is to create digital versions of these records for curation and research purposes. However, traditional methods of specimen imaging and metadata transcription are [...]
Glycoprotein Structure and Function in Mammalian Immune Systems: Molecular Architecture and Regulatory Networks
Published: 2025-07-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
Glycoproteins represent fundamental architectural and regulatory components of mammalian immune systems, orchestrating complex molecular interactions through their carbohydrate modifications. This comprehensive review examines the structural diversity, biosynthetic pathways, and functional roles of glycoproteins in both innate and adaptive immunity. The glycan code, mediated by cell surface [...]
A handbook for standardised measurements of regenerative plant functional traits
Published: 2025-07-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
A lack of standardised sampling protocols prevents functional traits from expressing their full potential to revolutionise plant ecology, biogeography, and evolutionary biology. Handbooks providing protocols for standardised measurements of plant functional traits allow researchers to tackle large-scale ecological questions but have traditionally focused on vegetative traits such as leaves, stems [...]
The Role of the Nervous and Endocrine Systems in Animal Homeostasis: An Integrative Review of Contemporary Mechanisms and Emerging Paradigms
Published: 2025-07-08
Subjects: Life Sciences
The maintenance of homeostasis in animals requires intricate coordination between the nervous and endocrine systems, forming a unified neuroendocrine network that regulates physiological stability across multiple timescales. This comprehensive review synthesises contemporary understanding of neural-hormonal integration, examining molecular mechanisms, evolutionary adaptations, and technological [...]
Evaluating the role of Zoo Campuses in Wild Snake Body Condition and Ophidiomycosis Risk
Published: 2025-07-08
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences
Abstract.—Snake Fungal Disease (SFD), caused by Ophidiomyces ophidiicola, poses a growing threat to snake populations. This study compared infection prevalence, body condition, and species composition between snakes found at Caldwell Zoo located in Tyler, Texas and those found in surrounding wild areas. While infection rates were similar (14.3% zoo, 12.1% wild), zoo-caught snakes had [...]
Mathematical Perspectives on Rewilding
Published: 2025-07-07
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Achieving sustainable human-wildlife coexistence in well-functioning ecosystems is a vitally important and major challenge under global change. In response, rewilding is an emerging paradigm in ecosystem service provision through the re-establishment of natural ecological processes in self-sustaining ecosystems. Effective prediction of ecological changes in rewilding projects requires tools [...]
Using accelerometer-based behavioral classification to enhance scavenger conservation
Published: 2025-07-07
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Life Sciences
1. Human activities are endangering animal species globally and implementing effective conservation strategies requires understanding animal behavior and ecology. Advancements in GPS tracking technology, accelerometry, and machine learning algorithms are allowing the in-situ study of animal movement and behavior remotely. However, the challenge of building supervised machine learning [...]
Topological equivalence of stomata distribution patterns across vascular plants
Published: 2025-07-07
Subjects: Biology, Botany, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences
Stomata are ancient anatomical structures on leaves that regulate the exchange of water vapor, oxygen, and carbon dioxide between plants and the atmosphere. Acting as valve-like gateways between internal tissues and the external environment, stomata may function as locally interacting networks. Theoretical and experimental evidence suggests that local interactions among neighboring stomata [...]