Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
A Community-Trait-Phylogenetic Framework: Ecological and Evolutionary Integration for Soil Microarthropod Assembly
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 Jonathan M. Anderson raised this question, soil ecology still struggles with a fragmented view on the coexistence of species. 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 [...]
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
This review examines spider nutritional physiology, which remains incompletely characterized despite spiders’ importance in ecosystems and experimental settings. In captivity (including research facilities, zoological institutions, and private collections), feeding practices are often generalized and may not address metabolic demands that vary across taxa. Consequently, links between nutrition [...]
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 [...]
Invasive fishes interact with temperature to reshape community size structure across climatic zones
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
The body size spectrum (or individual size distribution) is a simple yet widely recognized approach that links individual and population traits to community structure and ecosystem functions, making it a valuable indicator of anthropogenic effects. However, the assessment of size spectra in the context of biological invasions remains poorly explored. We investigated the impacts of non-native (NN) [...]
Lineage-Specific Adaptive Evolution of the Mosquito Fibrinogen-Related Protein FBN30 at a Predicted Parasite-Facing Interface
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Fibrinogen-related proteins (FREPs) contribute to mosquito-parasite interactions, yet the evolutionary processes shaping their functional diversification remain poorly resolved. The mosquito protein FBN30 has been implicated in restricting Plasmodium development, but its molecular basis of action is unknown. Here, the study examines the evolutionary history of FBN30 across Anopheles mosquitoes to [...]
RNA Virus Discovery from Daphnia meta-transcriptomes: A novel Tombunoda-like virus based on RNA dependent RNA polymerase identification
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Life Sciences, Virology
The discovery of RNA viruses from meta-transcriptomes has led to an explosion in viral diversity and identified many novel host-virus associations. To date, no studies have examined the RNA virome of the model zooplankter Daphnia. From which only four viruses are known, with only one being well understood. Here, I assemble and annotate RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) containing contigs from [...]
Changes in the fire resilience of Mediterranean trees in response to climate variability over the past 300 Years
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
With global warming, understanding the tree resilience to fire is still a scalding topic in ecology. Tree resilience would depend on fire intervals, and on interactions with atmospheric conditions, including temperature, precipitation, drought, and CO₂. These interactions would be exacerbated in Mediterranean ecosystems. We test this hypothesis by analysing variations in tree-ring widths [...]
The resurgence of Evening Grosbeak Coccothraustes vespertinus: A 2024-2025 winter revival in Boileau, Québec: A Research Study
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
The Evening Grosbeak is widely distributed across Canada’s forests but has exhibited significant long-term declines (77-90%) over most of its range since 1970. Project FeederWatch data gathered between 1988 and 2006 indicated a significant survey wide decline in the mean flock size, 27% in 18 years. The number of sites reporting any sighting plunged 50%. Breeding bird survey (BBS) data indicate [...]
Reconciling top-down conservation priorities with bottom-up local needs
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Community-based Research, Environmental Policy, Life Sciences, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation
The success of global conservation goals risks being undermined by conflicts that arise when high-level, data-driven priorities clash with local needs and contexts. While top-down systematic planning efficiently identifies priority areas using large-scale, multi-dimensional data, it neglects the input of local communities and stakeholders. Here, we propose a novel priority-setting process that [...]
What evidence exists on the effectiveness of nature-inclusive designs for marine biodiversity in offshore wind farms? A Systematic map protocol
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
The global expansion of offshore wind energy is essential for meeting climate targets, yet its ecological impacts on marine biodiversity remain a major concern. In line with the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which calls upon all economic sectors to reduce negative impacts and enhance positive contributions, Nature-inclusive Designs (NiDs) have been proposed to reduce the [...]
Oxidative stress after pollutant exposure depends strongly on experimental design and pollutant properties: a meta-analysis
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
Measurements of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are often performed to assess a species’ general sublethal stress response to a pollutant. However, ROS bioassays often produce seemingly ambiguous results, and the drivers that lead to these differences are largely unknown. To approach this gap, we conducted a meta-analysis on ROS generation, ROS-associated damage products, enzyme activities, and [...]
Functional stability of coastal plankton communities toward extreme weather-related stressors
Published: 2025-11-19
Subjects: Life Sciences
Extreme weather events, such as marine heatwaves and terrestrial runoff, are intensifying in many areas and pose growing threats. In the present study, we assessed the functional stability of plankton communities in response to these events by comparing their responses to marine heatwave and terrestrial runoff stressors. Using two in situ mesocosm experiments conducted at the same coastal site, [...]
Edge-of-range camera-trap records of Superb Lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae) in western and central-north Tasmania (2018–2025)
Published: 2025-11-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Ornithology
Tasmania’s Superb Lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae) was deliberately introduced to south‑east Tasmania in 1934 and has since dispersed across much of the island’s central bioregions. Despite this expansion, the Lyrebird’s future range dynamics remains uncertain, with recent modelling projecting that it will take over 50 years for the species to establish in the north-west of the island. Here we [...]