Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
A Framework for Questionable Research Practices in Ecological Modelling
Published: 2026-02-20
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Water Resource Management
1. Questionable research practices (QRPs) bias the published literature towards apparently strong and conclusive results, resulting in low rates of replicability. Recent metaresearch reveals that ecology is not immune to the ‘reproducibility crisis’ seen in other disciplines, due to similar rates of QRPs and a lack of transparency in published research. However, metaresearch to date focuses on [...]
Roe Deer show an affinity for woodland and reluctance to cross roads
Published: 2026-02-19
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Animals use landscapes unequally and have differential responses to anthropogenic changes such as land cover modification. Predicting such responses can be challenging, requiring knowledge of animal movements. This knowledge is particularly valuable where human-animal interactions have implications for either's well-being. Large herbivores, with relatively high mobility, often come in contact [...]
Maternal swimming exercise training improves survival and the heritability of thermal tolerance and length in brown trout offspring
Published: 2026-02-19
Subjects: Life Sciences
Changing the narrative: encroached savannas are not forest
Published: 2026-02-19
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Savannas are globally important ecosystems but are often misclassified as forests because they can support high tree cover, leading to misguided management. This misunderstanding arises because the presence of grasses, a key defining component of savannas, critical for their structure and functioning, is overlooked. 2. Fundamental tree-based misunderstandings affect the interpretation of [...]
Chemical Ecology of Arachnids - Morphology, Behaviour, and Semiochemicals
Published: 2026-02-17
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Arachnids represent a diverse and ecologically influential paraphyletic assemblage of chelicerate arthropods that has colonized virtually every terrestrial habitat. Arachnids contribute to ecosystems as predators, parasites and decomposers. Yet, the chemical mechanisms that allow arachnids to interact with the environment remain strikingly understudied relative to their taxonomic breadth. Much of [...]
mrangr: An R package for mechanistic simulation of metacommunities
Published: 2026-02-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Metacommunity theory unifies ecology by integrating local biotic interactions with regional dispersal and environmental filtering. However, testing theoretical predictions against empirical data remains challenging due to the difficulty of disentangling these processes in nature and the confounding effects of imperfect detection. 2. Here, we introduce mrangr, an R package designed for the [...]
Continental scale light-temperature extremes reveal key behavioural trade-offs
Published: 2026-02-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Daily rhythms determine ecological interactions, but we rarely know how animals convert activity schedules into movement and space use across extreme light–temperature regimes. Using multi-annual GPS data from 76 Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) tracked across Scandinavia and Iberia (spanning 35° latitude), we quantified diel activity and displacement to test how photoperiod and temperature [...]
Temporal and Spatial Variation in Temperature and Oxygen at the Microscale: Key Niche Axes for Aquatic Life
Published: 2026-02-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
To understand animal adaptations we need accurate estimates of the ecological factors impacting on organisms in nature. Whilst temperature is a well-established driver of physiological performance, its effects in aquatic systems are closely linked to water oxygenation. Oxygen levels are expected to differ spatially and fluctuate temporally much more strongly in water than on land, but our [...]
Cities alter the latitudinal diversity gradient of birds in North America
Published: 2026-02-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is a widely recognized biogeographic pattern, yet its persistence under increasing human impacts remains unclear. Leveraging 17 million eBird records, we investigated how urbanization alters LDGs in North America. We quantified LDGs across 662 cities and their surroundings, and found that LDGs vary by season and native status: non-native species exhibited [...]
No seed size–number trade-off in European beech: climate governs investment per seed
Published: 2026-02-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Mast-seeding trees can vary seed output by orders of magnitude among years, but it remains unclear whether high seed production comes at the cost of reduced per-seed investment, as predicted by fixed-budget allocation models. We quantified individual seed production with seed mass in European beech across 2,792 trees and 123 populations spanning the species’ European range and quantified seed [...]
Unstructured community science data reveal constriction of breeding distribution for a common montane bird across the Fennoscandian peninsula
Published: 2026-02-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
The threat of climate change is particularly acute for species in arctic and montane habitats, where changes are happening the most rapidly. Species are generally expected to shift their ranges northward and upslope in response to changing climates, but actual measured shifts in species distributions have been nuanced and large quantities of data are needed to accurately assess shifts. The [...]
Insect monitoring without pitfalls: seven steps for robust insect sensing systems
Published: 2026-02-13
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biodiversity, Computer Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Data shortages fuel controversy about an ongoing insect biodiversity crisis. Insects are immensely diverse and functionally critical for ecosystems, yet data on insect trends remain patchy and biased. Sensors, ranging from camera-equipped light traps to weather radar stations, are set to transform entomological data collection. Meanwhile, AI models that extract biological information from sensors [...]
A systematic map and comprehensive database of animal organ sizes
Published: 2026-02-12
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health
The relationship between individual organ size and overall body size in animals is a fundamental biological phenomenon that spans multiple disciplines. However, a comprehensive synthesis of the sources of variation in organ-specific scaling remains lacking, even among mammals, the most extensively studied vertebrate group. We developed a systematic map and compiled a large database of paired [...]
The incredible vulnerability that reproduction poses for plant species in a warming world
Published: 2026-02-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
Temperatures are rising globally and threatening the persistence of natural plant populations. Elevated temperatures disrupt gametogenesis, fertilization, and seed filling, often at lower thresholds than those affecting photosynthesis, growth, or survival. While crop scientists have found that key reproductive stages are particularly vulnerable to heat stress across plant systems, ecological and [...]
Oxygen limitation is not a major physiological mechanism restricting early life development in zebrafish
Published: 2026-02-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
Early life stages are considered particularly vulnerable to warming because tissue oxygen supply is thought to become limiting, given their underdeveloped gill function and reliance on passive oxygen diffusion. Here, we tested whether oxygen availability constrains early development under warming in zebrafish (Danio rerio). We exposed embryos and early-stage larvae to a high-resolution factorial [...]