Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
OSEA, a deep learning-based bird classification tool, with pre-trained model, mobile and command line applications
Published: 2025-01-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Life Sciences, Ornithology
In response to the challenges of traditional biodiversity monitoring methods, we introduce OSEA (Open Species Estimation for Avians), a multi-platform, offline tool for bird species identification. Designed to recognize over 10,000 bird species, OSEA includes both a mobile application and a command-line interface (CLI), facilitating efficient bird species identification. The mobile app, developed [...]
Phenological Plasticity and Its Thermal Determinants in Common Songbirds across Europe
Published: 2025-01-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Phenological plasticity—the ability of organisms to adjust breeding timing in response to environmental variability —is the primary mechanism for seasonal organisms as it enables to synchronize their life cycles with seasonal resource availability. Theory predicts that phenological plasticity should vary among populations because of environmental heterogeneity, and among species because of [...]
AI and Big Data for invasion biology: finding, modelling and forecasting the population dynamics of invaders
Published: 2025-01-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the study and management of invasive species through analytical and predictive tools that optimize detection, monitoring, and automated eradication. In this work, we reviewed the fundamental principles of machine learning and deep learning, illustrated with recent case studies on invasive species. We also present the first systematic review of [...]
Addressing multi-generational non-genetic inheritance in experimental studies of evolution
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Populations that face environmental change reducing their fitness can recover by adaptive genetic evolution over multiple generations, but their immediate responses often involve non-genetic mechanisms. When such non-genetic responses have dynamics that span multiple generations, their effects at the population level can be difficult to distinguish from those of evolution by selection of genetic [...]
No, ecosystems do not have intrinsic value! A response to the Conguillío Statement
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. The Conguillío Statement on the alleged values and responsibilities of ecologists claims that ecosystems are intrinsically valuable. This is a common claim by ecologists and the authors of the Conguillío Statement probably view it as uncontroversial. 2. Ecologists want to invoke the concept of intrinsic value because it seems to cover more of nature than instrumental value. However, [...]
Impacts of plant invasions on tick-borne disease risk
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Under global change, plant invasions may alter tick-borne disease (TBD) exposure risk. The direction and magnitude of changes in TBD risk resulting from invasions remain poorly understood because research has often been species-specific or insufficient to quantify mechanisms. In this overview, we describe how invasive plant functional traits can mediate microclimates, how tick survival and [...]
Does post-natal parental care influence cognitive development in a social gecko?
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
How cognition evolved remains a debated “hot-topic” in the field of animal cognition. Current hypotheses link variation in sociality, ecology, and more generally, environmental challenges to differences in cognitive development, both between as well as within species. Research supporting the Social Intelligence Hypothesis, which states that cognition evolved to deal with social challenges, is [...]
Communities and Ecosystems
Published: 2025-01-03
Subjects: Life Sciences
Communities and ecosystems are two related and contested concepts in ecology. Despite their longevity, three unanswered philosophical questions apply to both concepts. First, "what are they?" Both concepts have multiple definitions and little agreement among ecologists about which is correct or which is most useful. Second, "how are they individuated?" Working from any particular definition, how [...]
Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals: Techniques, Challenges, and Prospects
Published: 2025-01-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Heavy metals, characterized by their high atomic mass and density, can pose significant risks to soil, water, plants, and human health. Contamination sources include manufacturing activities, mining, farming practices, and improper waste management. Metals such as arsenic, mercury, lead, chromium, and cadmium are most toxic with health consequences that can result from organ dysfunction to [...]
Which phenotypic traits are under selection from warm, dry climates in black spruce?
Published: 2024-12-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
• Trees are increasingly at risk of maladaptation to their environment as climates change rapidly world-wide. Although adaptive evolution by natural selection is a key mechanism by which populations and species can avoid extinction in changing environments, we have limited information regarding the phenotypic traits under selection under warm and dry environments. We answer the following research [...]
Interannual variability modulates Harrison’s rule between cymothoid isopod and their prawn host: Insights from a long-term stream study
Published: 2024-12-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Host body size can influence the evolution of parasite body size in many host-parasite associations, a hypothesis called Harrison’s rule (HR). However, this pattern has not always been consistently observed, with some studies finding no association between host and parasite size. Moreover, other host-related factors (e.g., sex, immunity) and environmental changes can mediate this relationship. [...]
Automated single species identification in camera trap images: architecture choice, training strategies, and the interpretation of performance metrics
Published: 2024-12-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Automated species detection in camera trap images with deep learning techniques has become common in ecological monitoring. Camera trap image data sets are a challenging task, because of modest data set size, high class imbalance owing to low prevalence of the species of interest, and image backgrounds that vary within and between cameras. Strategies to tackle these difficulties can be adopted at [...]
Comparative Life-Cycle Analyses Reveal Interacting Climatic and Biotic Drivers of Population Responses to Climate Change
Published: 2024-12-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Responses of natural populations to climate change are driven by how multiple climatic and biotic factors affect survival and reproduction, and ultimately shape population dynamics. Yet, despite substantial progress to synthesize the sensitivity of populations to climatic variation, comparative studies still overlook such complex interactions among drivers that generate variation in [...]
Dynamic parental roles revealed by fine-scale hunting behaviour with concurrent pair tracking in the wild
Published: 2024-12-23
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Zoology
Parental cooperation in offspring care is essential for offspring survival in species with extended biparental care. Yet, the mechanisms through which each parent’s foraging skills and performance shape both their own and their partner’s contributions to offspring rearing, particularly in natural conditions, remain poorly understood. Using high-resolution GPS and accelerometer data, we [...]
Early environmental conditions do not impact behavioural flexibility in an invasive and non-invasive lizard species
Published: 2024-12-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Behavioural flexibility, the ability to adjust behaviour adaptively in response to internal or external changes, is expected to be crucial for animals adapting to environmental fluctuations. However, the conditions experienced during early development can profoundly impact behavioural flexibility making it unclear how populations will respond to novel circumstances. Stressful situations faced by [...]