Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Signals of ecological decline and increasing genomic inbreeding in Western Hudson Bay polar bears
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
Climate change is a leading cause of population declines. Predicting the evolutionary consequences of such declines can be challenging for long-lived species because slow generation times and the overlap of individuals from multiple generations within a population can obscure signals of genetic diversity losses. We integrated four decades of environmental, demographic, and genomic data from the [...]
Weeds are plants of human-modified environments, not plants out of place
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
The question “What makes a plant a weed?” has persisted in both the agricultural sciences and plant ecology and evolution for well over a hundred years. Various authors—agriculturists focused on crop yield, ecologists examining community assembly, and plant biologists interested in adaptation—have each defined the term weed. However, these definitions, developed from unique vantage points, have [...]
Rethinking success and quality in ecological forecasting
Published: 2026-10-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Ecological forecasts are increasingly required to inform science, policy and action in the face of rapid environmental and societal change. However, differences in how developers and end-users judge the value of ecological forecasts may limit their utility and uptake in real-world decision-making. Here, we use a participatory approach to propose a novel, holistic framework for the evaluation of [...]
Polar bear conflict risk behaviour is shaped by maternal, individual, and environmental effects, not heritability
Published: 2026-10-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
As ecosystems transform under the combined pressures of climate change and human activity, interactions between humans and wildlife are becoming increasingly common. Human-wildlife conflict is often managed by either targeting repeatedly involved individuals or modifying the conditions that make conflict more likely. Choosing which approach to emphasize depends partly on whether individual [...]
Spatial crime scripting and meso-level analyses of illegal pangolin trade
Published: 2026-10-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Human-related threats such as poaching and illegal trade remain the dominant risk to pangolin conservation. Using crime science focused on illegal pangolin hunting, we compare expert vs. community member’s spatio-temporal knowledge about the different stages of pangolin poaching and trade process at a national scale; explore spatial trajectories between stages; and explore spatial predictors of [...]
Globalizing recreational fisheries should not globalize non-native species
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Life Sciences
Recreational fishing continues to expand globally, generating substantial economic, cultural, and social benefits. Yet with this globalization in fishing opportunities comes more diverse pathways for biological invasions. Major concerns are surfacing that the intentional stocking of non-native fishes to initiate or enhance recreational fisheries may facilitate the unsanctioned spread of the [...]
Not All Shrubs are Equal: The Outsized Ecological Consequences of Ericaceous Shrub Encroachment on Communities and Ecosystem Processes
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Shrubs are functionally important and found across various ecosystems. Over the past few decades, shrubs have been expanding their ranges and encroaching within grassland, temperate, boreal, and tundra ecosystems. Because of this range expansion and their functional importance, shrubs are altering abiotic factors, biotic interactions, and ecosystem processes. However, shrubs of the Ericaceae [...]
CHIRAL FLEXIBILITY IN INSECT PHEROMONES: WHY DO SOME SPECIES TOLERATE THE WRONG STEREOISOMER?
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Many insect pheromones are chiral, and receivers respond to non-natural stereoisomers in strikingly different ways: some are completely inhibited by a few per cent of the antipode, some ignore it, some require both enantiomers, and at least one responds more strongly to stereoisomers it does not produce. These response types were catalogued two decades ago, and the most common of them, a [...]
Rethinking bias in biodiversity science: sources and solutions
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Bias is increasingly a central concern in biodiversity science, yet the term is used inconsistently. A key source of confusion is the failure to distinguish clearly between the dimension in which bias manifests (e.g. spatial or taxonomic) and/or the stage of the observation process that gives rise to it. This distinction matters because the appropriate method for mitigating bias depends primarily [...]
Rainfall increases similarity in plant species composition between grazed and ungrazed sites in a tropical semi-arid grassland
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. In peninsular India, semi-arid grasslands support marginal farmers and rich endemic biodiversity, yet are commonly designated as wastelands, and fragmentation has caused heavy grazing by domestic and wild mammals. The impacts of unmanaged grazing and increasingly variable monsoon rainfall on the plant community are unknown. 2. We studied an ancient tropical semi-arid grassland in a drought [...]
Movement Ethology: Body Pose Meets Relocation Data
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Animal movement is studied by two different communities. Movement ecologists use GPS location point sequences to track where whole animals range over extended periods of time. Computational ethologists use video and machine learning to measure how body parts move over short periods of time, mostly in the laboratory. We propose Movement Ethology to link the study of body configurations and actions [...]
Orchid Diversity and Conservation through Agro-Ecotourism in Ri-Bhoi District, Meghalaya
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Meghalaya supports rich orchid diversity because of its varied elevation, humid monsoon climate, and forest ecosystems. Ri-Bhoi district, including the College of Agriculture, Kyrdemkulai (COA-K) campus, offers opportunities to document and conserve both epiphytic and terrestrial orchids. This paper brings together published information on orchid diversity and distribution in Meghalaya with [...]
Confirmation of the presence of Squalius squalus (Bonaparte, 1837) in Sicily.
Published: 2026-10-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
The occurrence of the Italian chub Squalius squalus (Bonaparte, 1837) in Sicily has always been reported in the literature in a contradictory manner and without certain documentation, being regarded as doubtful by the most recent reviews of the xenodiversity of Sicilian inland waters. Recently, the DNA of the species was detected in an artificial lake. Here we report the first confirmed record of [...]
Benefits and challenges of public engagement: how can systemic changes enhance researcher well-being and sustained participation?
Published: 2026-10-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Discussions of public engagement typically emphasize its benefits for society and research outcomes, but far less attention has been given to its effects on researchers' well-being. In this viewpoint, we explore how public engagement can contribute to positive work experiences. Drawing on examples from our own projects, we illustrate how engagement activities can foster meaning, connection, [...]
Oak gall wasps lack conserved microbial symbionts
Published: 2026-10-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Herbivorous insects frequently rely on microbial partners to exploit their host plants, yet for gall-inducing insect taxa, there were few attempts to comprehensively resolve their microbial associations. To address this gap, we characterised microbial abundance, composition and specificity in three Polish populations of cherry oak gall wasps (Cynips quercusfolii), a highly specialized [...]