Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
WildMAPS: A Global repository and visualisation tool for habitat suitability predictions
Published: 2026-06-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
The Global Biodiversity Framework outlines a consensus of global targets for reversing the decline of biodiversity. A core theme that underpins the framework is the identification of areas that hold the most potential for realising positive outcomes for biodiversity. Identifying these areas is a complex process involving large scientific datasets and stakeholders from a range of background and [...]
Choices that matter: the impact of substitution models on machine learning-based species delimitation inference
Published: 2026-06-17
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics
The choice of nucleotide substitution models is a cornerstone of phylogenetic inference, influencing the accuracy of the estimated evolutionary parameters and, by extension, demographic and species delimitation model selection. With the growing adoption of machine learning methods trained on simulated data, it remains unclear how the substitution model used during simulation training influences [...]
Are We Mapping Ecosystems or Models? Framework Choices Dominate Food Web Topology and Extinction Inferences
Published: 2026-06-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Aim Ecological networks are widely used to assess community structure, stability, and responses to disturbance. Such networks often require model-based reconstructions (e.g., based on traits or theoretical constraints); however, the extent to which these frameworks influence ecological inference remains unexplored. Here, we assess whether macroecological inference derived from ecological [...]
How cities lock in biodiversity persistence, recovery, and decline
Published: 2026-06-15
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Cities are expanding biodiversity plans, restoration projects, green infrastructure, corridors, and nature-based solutions. This Perspective defines biodiversity lock-ins as self-reinforcing urban pathways that make it difficult to reverse biodiversity persistence, recovery, or decline. It contributes a durability lens that links six urban mechanisms with biodiversity-specific features, including [...]
Connected but Misaligned: Rethinking Urban Nature for Biodiversity, Equity, and Resilience
Published: 2026-06-15
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Urban nature is often planned through partial forms of connectivity: habitat corridors for biodiversity, green infrastructure networks for ecosystem services, accessibility networks for public use, and governance networks for implementation. Yet connected urban nature can still fail. Connectivity misalignment occurs when connections in one domain coexist with disconnection, inequity, risk, weak [...]
Tree species richness effects on pre-dispersal seed predation are mediated by tree fruit type
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Forest BEF experiments are only now reaching a stage at which natural tree regeneration can be studied, offering new opportunities to understand how biodiversity shapes trophic interactions during early demographic filtering. Here, we quantified seed productivity and insect-mediated pre-dispersal seed predation on 12 tree species across a tree species richness gradient from 1 to 16 in the [...]
An integrated framework for unifying our understanding of nonconsumptive predation risk effects
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Predation risk can induce risk-induced trait responses (RITRs) – changes in prey defensive traits including behavior, morphology, life history, and physiology – thought to have profound effects on prey fitness and population dynamics (termed ‘nonconsumptive effects’). Yet, predicting the magnitude of RITRs and their fitness consequences remains difficult because outcomes depend heavily on [...]
Evolutionary and operational trade-offs in assisted gene flow for climate-adaptive forestry
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Assisted gene flow (AGF) is an adaptive forest management strategy to increase forests' resilience to climate change, yet little is known about how management decisions interact with the strength of natural selection and introgression dynamics that co-determine relative stand productivity. We used individual-based, spatially explicit simulations to investigate how spatial configuration (ranging [...]
The crabeater seal reference genome reveals hallmarks of persistently large effective population size and sustained population expansion in the World’s most abundant pinniped
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
Population genetic theory predicts that a species’ demographic history shapes patterns of genome-wide variation. However, conservation genomic studies have disproportionately focused on small or declining species, where low genetic diversity and inbreeding are major concerns, while highly abundant species have attracted comparatively less attention. Here, we investigate the crabeater seal [...]
Predator Experience Shapes Behaviour: Comparing Stone Wētā (Hemideina maori) Populations With and Without Weka (Gallirallus australis hectori)
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Antipredator behaviour reflects both evolutionary history and individual experience, yet how populations respond to changes in predator exposure remains poorly understood, particularly for large invertebrates. We examined antipredator behaviour in two populations of stone wētā (Hemideina maori Pictet & Saussure, 1891) inhabiting weka-free Mou Tapu and nearby Mou Waho, where weka (Gallirallus [...]
Mapping Mechanistic Modeling of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Across Migratory Flyways: A Systematic Review
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Diseases, Epidemiology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Virus Diseases
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses, particularly H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, continue to spread globally via wild migratory birds along defined flyway corridors. Mechanistic models are essential tools for understanding HPAI transmission dynamics in flyway systems. Yet the geographic distribution of such modeling efforts across migratory flyways remains unknown. To inform the global [...]
Soma as transmission control in multicellular evolution: a population-genetic framework for germline restriction and cellular altruism
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Genetics, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
A central question in the evolution of multicellularity is why lineages repeatedly transition from germ-dominated unicellular states to organizations with extensive somatic investment. If somatic cells are largely excluded from future generations, why are they produced at all, and why do soma-free multicellular alternatives appear limited in stability, persistence, or attainable complexity? Here, [...]
Intertidal Exposure Modulates Time-Integrated Heat Tolerance of the Eastern Oyster Crassostrea virginica
Published: 2026-06-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The rise of unprecedented heatwaves globally has caused an increase in mass mortality events, motivating the need for accurate predictions of population declines. Predicting organismal function under fluctuating thermal regimes is a central challenge in thermal biology, particularly in intertidal systems where organisms experience rapid shifts between submerged and aerial exposure. Here, we [...]
Comparative urban behaviour of two sympatric columbids: Columba palumbus and Columba livia
Published: 2026-06-05
Subjects: Life Sciences
Urban environments favour species tolerant of human disturbance. We compared time budgets and anti-predator behaviour of the common wood pigeon (Columba palumbus) and rock pigeon (Columba livia) in five urban parks in León (Spain) using video recordings and predator approach tests. The common wood pigeon devoted most time to foraging (81.1%) with moderate vigilance (9.9%), while the rock pigeon [...]
Trophic interactions of ants are robust to tree species loss
Published: 2026-06-05
Subjects: Entomology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. How changes in habitat conditions influence insect diversity has been intensively studied. However, whether trophic interactions of insects are also influenced by such changes is largely unknown. Higher habitat heterogeneity is often hypothesized to promote niche partitioning and complementarity in resource use among interacting species, yet evidence from animal interaction networks is sparse. [...]