Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
The Origin of Genetic Heredity
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Life Sciences
The dominant view that genetic heredity arose in an RNA world stems from the ideas of Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel, who suggested that early nucleotide polymers could act as both phenotype and genotype and that the genetic code was shaped by a frozen accident. At around the same time, Carl Woese proposed a different model: that naturally occurring early translation was biased by weak [...]
From pixels to plants: linking remotely sensed habitat data to roe deer diet from DNA metabarcoding in Scottish forest landscapes
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Understanding how landscape characteristics influence herbivore diet selection is fundamental to predicting ecological impacts and developing effective wildlife management strategies. We linked remotely sensed habitat data and dietary DNA metabarcoding to test whether landcover classifications can explain variation in European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) diet across Scottish forest landscapes. [...]
Seasonal warming and marine heatwaves shape thermal acclimation and growth of juvenile European plaice in a coastal nursery habitat
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Life Sciences
Global climate change is driving ocean warming and exposing shallow coastal nursery habitats to increasingly frequent marine heatwaves. The European plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) is a flatfish that settles in shallow sandy bays of the Northeast Atlantic in spring and remains until late summer migration, experiencing peak seasonal temperatures during a critical period for juvenile growth. We [...]
Humans simplified trophic structures in island lake ecosystems
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Life Sciences
Lakes on oceanic islands are exceptionally vulnerable ecosystems and serve as natural archives of long-term environmental change, yet long-term reconstructions spanning multiple trophic levels remain rare. We reconstruct 2,000 years of ecological change across nine Azorean lakes by analysing sediment records of community composition and trophic-guild richness for aquatic producers and consumers, [...]
What’s in flower? Phenological temperature sensitivities in a restricted alpine flora
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
As climate warming continues, cues for shifts in plant reproductive timing will be a key mediator of species success. To examine the links between temperature and flowering time in the Australian alpine, we used climate records and 18,000 flowering observations spanning 12 years for 52 alpine plant species from the Snowy Mountains, Australia. We modelled three phenological traits (flowering [...]
Why we need ecology and evolution for a better understanding of misdirected behaviour
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Animal behaviour emerges from the complex interaction between internal states, as well as biotic and abiotic environmental conditions. When observed behavioural responses differ from researchers’ expectations, they are often described as “misdirected behaviour” and potentially maladaptive. However, several factors including genetic background and developmental conditions, sensory perception and [...]
Prevalence of Gastrointestinal Parasites in Goats and Sheep in Mbula Kuli, Adamawa State, Nigeria
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Life Sciences
Gastrointestinal (GI) parasitism is a major constraint to small ruminant productivity in Nigeria, causing reduced growth, weight loss, and economic losses to herders. This study assessed the prevalence of gastrointestinal parasites in goats and sheep in Mbula Kuli, Adamawa State, Nigeria, between 2025 and 2026. A total of 110 faecal samples (40 from goats and 70 from sheep) were collected and [...]
The effect of environmental change on plastic sex-ratio strategies
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Life Sciences
Offspring sex ratio manipulation has been widely studied, with numerous adaptive explanations proposed for biased sex ratios. While sex-ratio trends have been observed in many species, such patterns often disappear over time within populations or differ across populations. Environmental change is frequently proposed as underlying these inconsistencies, particularly for strategies relying on [...]
wildtag.ai: an open-access end-to-end offline AI-assisted desktop application for managing camera trap projects
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Bioinformatics, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Camera traps generate massive volumes of data, yet their decision-support potential is diluted by the bottleneck of manual processing. Automated classification has largely solved this, but classification alone does not remove the barriers to adoption: it must be coupled with the means to turn predictions into a verified, shareable dataset, which no existing tool does end-to-end, offline, and [...]
Uptake of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in plants: A systematic review and meta-analysis research protocol
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) transfer from contaminated environments into plants, contributing to food chain accumulation and an exposure pathway central to human health risk assessment. Regulatory risk assessments commonly use plant bioconcentration factors (BCFs) to estimate dietary exposure and support the derivation of health-based guideline values, yet they have not been [...]
Predictive movement ecology using spatial simulations
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The active movement of animals is fundamental to the structure and function of ecosystems globally. In recent years, reductions in the size and cost of animal tracking equipment have precipitated an explosion of interest in movement ecology, accelerating our understanding of the causes and consequences of animal movement. Until recently, movement ecology was largely a descriptive science. [...]
Heat tolerance in bees: a meta-analysis of ecological, evolutionary, and methodological drivers
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
Climate change poses a growing threat to bees, which provide essential pollination services in natural and agricultural ecosystems. Although the critical thermal maximum (CTmax) is widely used to assess the vulnerability of pollinators to climate change, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the factors shaping heat tolerance across bee species globally. We conducted a systematic review and [...]
Reopening the Strait of Hormuz: from a bioinvasion super-spreader warning to species–vessel–port prioritisation
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
Prolonged vessel lay-up can create an exceptional biosecurity hazard by allowing fouling assemblages to accumulate before vessels re-enter shipping networks. A recent study highlighted this risk following closure of the Strait of Hormuz and recommended pre-departure biofouling assessment, route forecasting, early detection and rapid communication. These measures address vectors and pathways, but [...]
What goes up, must come down: air–soil microbiome connectivity and its implications for ecosystem functioning
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Soils harbor Earth's largest reservoir of microbial diversity, yet enormous numbers of microorganisms are continuously aerosolized, transported through the atmosphere, and redeposited across landscapes. Although soil and the atmosphere have largely been studied separately, here, we propose a conceptual framework that views soils and the atmosphere as a coupled microbiome linked by bidirectional [...]
Heatwave-mediated maternal effects: heat stress in late but not early pregnancy has carry over effects on offspring phenotype
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
Heatwaves are extreme climatic events driven by climate change that profoundly affect animal survival and reproduction. Although evidence for the direct effects of heatwaves on reproduction is increasing, much less is known about whether heatwaves during pregnancy generate maternal effects on offspring, and whether these effects depend on the timing of exposure. Pregnancy is a metabolically [...]