Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Northward expansion of the thermal limit for the tick Ixodes ricinus over the past 40 years
Published: 2025-02-14
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
The tick Ixodes ricinus is the main pathogen vector in Europe. Many speculations have been made about the effect of past climate change on the potential distribution of this ectothermic organism, despite a poor understanding of how climate change has resulted in distribution changes to date. In this study, we used a public cross-sectional dataset of I. ricinus abundance at the northern edge of [...]
The effect of habitat health and environmental change on cultural diversity and richness in animals
Published: 2025-02-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
There is increasing evidence that habitat decline via fragmentation or species loss can lead to loss of cultural diversity, complexity, or richness in non-human animals. For example, a reduction in local bird species richness leads lyrebirds to sing less complex song, while great apes living in fragmented landscapes have smaller cultural repertoires. However, the link between animal culture and [...]
Diversity and Distribution of Amphibians and Freshwater Fishes on Australian Islands
Published: 2025-02-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Freshwater ecosystems cover less than 3% of the earth’s surface, yet support nearly 10% of all known animal species, majorly represented by freshwater fishes (69%) and amphibians (24%), both of which are highly threatened groups. Geographically isolated freshwater species, such as those inhabiting islands, are at high risk. Australia, with ~9300 islands, is home to diverse island freshwater [...]
Monitoring animal movement diversity as a component of biodiversity
Published: 2025-02-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
Animal movement is increasingly being quantified in novel ways, with high potential for integration in broad-scale efforts to monitor biological diversity. Here, we define movement diversity as a form of biodiversity measuring variation in animal movement from the level of individual animals to communities. We present a framework to develop a common language for movement diversity metrics which [...]
Individual variation in animal communication: from species averages to unique voices
Published: 2025-02-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
The comparative study of the communicative behaviour of non-human animals, especially primates, has yielded crucial insights into the evolution of human language. This research, mostly focused on the species and population level, has helped to understand the various socio-ecological factors that shape communication systems. However, despite the inherent flexibility of human communication, the [...]
Designing epigenetic clocks for wildlife research
Published: 2025-02-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
The applications of epigenetic clocks, statistical models that predict an individual's age based on DNA methylation patterns, are expanding in wildlife conservation and management. This growing interest highlights the need for field-specific design best practices. Here, we provide recommendations for two main applications of wildlife epigenetic clocks: estimating the unknown ages of individuals [...]
Location-scale Meta-analysis and Meta-regression as a Tool to Capture Large-scale Changes in Biological and Methodological Heterogeneity: a Spotlight on Heteroscedasticity
Published: 2025-02-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Heterogeneity is a defining feature of ecological and evolutionary meta-analyses. While conventional metal-analysis and meta-regression methods acknowledge heterogeneity in effect sizes, they typically as-sume this heterogeneity is constant across studies and levels of moderators (i.e., homoscedasticity). This assumption could mask potentially informative patterns in the data. Here, we introduce [...]
Variations in epifaunal assemblages among different algal species in the coastal waters of the Noto Peninsula, Japan
Published: 2025-02-10
Subjects: Life Sciences
Algal beds are biodiversity hotspots in coastal ecosystems, forming complex food webs based on seaweeds. Epifauna serve as important indicators of algal productivity and environmental change, interacting closely with their host seaweeds. This study compared the composition of epifaunal assemblages associated with different seaweed species in the Noto Peninsula, Japan, to elucidate their [...]
Seeing herbaria in a new light: leaf reflectance spectroscopy unlocks predictive trait and classification modeling in plant biodiversity collections
Published: 2025-02-10
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Reflectance spectroscopy is a rapid method for estimating traits and discriminating species. Spectral libraries from herbarium specimens represent an untapped resource for generating broad phenomic datasets across space, time, and taxa. We conducted a proof-of-concept study using trait data and spectra from herbarium specimens up to 179 years old alongside data from recently dried, pressed [...]
Multiplayer videogames to analyze behavior during ecological interactions
Published: 2025-02-10
Subjects: Life Sciences
Behavior shapes population and community dynamics through feedbacks with habitat configuration and interaction networks. Work on this interplay includes longitudinal surveys, experiments, and models. Multiplayer online videogames foster real-time interactions among lots of players in virtual spaces. Data from these games could complement theoretical and empirical work but research on them is only [...]
Geography, taxonomy, extinction risk and exposure of fully migratory birds to droughts and cyclones
Published: 2025-02-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Anthropogenic climate change is predicted to drive unprecedented increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events, such as drought and cyclones. The impacts of these events on fully migratory species could be particularly severe and have cascading effects on the functioning of many ecosystems. We explore the relationships between geography, taxonomy, extinction risk and the [...]
Monogenea on exotic Indian freshwater fish. 8. Co-translocation of Cichlidogyrus tilapiae (Monogenea, Dactylogyridae) with pindani Chindongo socolofi (Cichliformes, Cichlidae), the first report of this parasite genus in India
Published: 2025-02-07
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Parasitology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Chindongo socolofi (Cichliformes, Cichlidae) is a popular freshwater ornamental fish from Lake Malawi in Africa. Although identifying parasites associated with the global ornamental trade is critical for developing biosecurity practices, little is known about the parasite fauna of C. socolofi. Therefore, this study sought to determine what monogenean parasites C. socolofi harbours in India. Adult [...]
Harnessing Large Language Models for Ecological Literature Reviews: A Practical Pipeline
Published: 2025-02-07
Subjects: Life Sciences
Hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed articles and grey literature reports are published every year in ecology and conservation biology. This ever-growing body of knowledge presents new challenges. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly challenging for researchers to stay current on new information and to identify knowledge gaps. Here, we argue that Large Language Models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s [...]
A new perspective on Squamate social cognition – the use of semiochemicals
Published: 2025-02-07
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The Social Intelligence Hypothesis suggests that cognition might be key to enable animals to live in social groups. Especially social cognition is important as it allows animals to respond appropriately to conspecifics and ensure group cohesion. Social cognition is extensively studied in mammals and birds but to gain a broad understanding of the benefits of social cognitive processes in social [...]
Shaped from an early age: behavioural and hormonal phenotypes in juvenile male guinea pigs living in distinct social environments
Published: 2025-02-05
Subjects: Animal Studies, Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Individuals can adjust to different social environments via plastic shaping of behavioural and endocrine phenotypes. As the social environment can change at any time, individuals need to be able to adjust throughout their lives. Our goal was therefore to elucidate when and how behavioural and hormonal adjustments in guinea pigs occur. We focused on juvenility, an important developmental phase [...]