Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Identifying genomic loci under selection in a widespread Bradyrhizobium, across Australian ecosystems using landscape genomics
Published: 2025-10-31
Subjects: Life Sciences
Climate change is reshaping soil environments, intensifying selective pressures on microbial communities that drive essential ecosystem processes. Understanding how nitrogen-fixing rhizobia adapt to environmental variation is critical for predicting ecosystem responses to global change. Here, we used redundancy analysis (RDA) to identify genomic loci associated with environmental gradients across [...]
The sleeping giant needs coffee: overlooked areas for the integration of plant ecophysiology and evolutionary biology
Published: 2025-10-31
Subjects: Life Sciences
Interpretations of evolutionary outcomes are limited without incorporation of physiological ecology; and ecophysiological interpretations would benefit from incorporating evolutionary perspectives. Although there has been a rise of studies in the last 20 years between these fields, evolutionary studies that incorporate plant physiology have largely focused on the same traits (i.e., flowering [...]
A coordinated biobank alliance for the zoological and conservation community
Published: 2025-10-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
With dramatic advancements in biological data generation, genetic rescue and reproductive technologies, and inter-institutional coordination of care across entire animal populations, zoos, aquariums, and their collaborators are uniquely positioned to lead population-wide research benefiting animal wellbeing and species survival. However, procedural and inter-institutional barriers make it [...]
Decomposing social interactions: a statistical method for estimating social impact and social responsiveness
Published: 2025-10-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
Social interactions mediate the phenotypic expression of fitness-relevant traits. The expression of such labile social traits includes three distinct components: an individual's mean trait value (direct effect), its social responsiveness, and its social impact (indirect effects). Traditional methods, such as variance-partitioning or trait-based models, usually only partition individual variation [...]
Animal dispersal costs are not universal
Published: 2025-10-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Dispersal is a keystone process shaping ecological and evolutionary dynamics, often assumed to be inherently costly. We synthesized 696 effect sizes from 206 studies across 148 animal species, spanning all continents and ecosystems, to test this assumption. Contrary to long-standing dogma, we found no overall effect of dispersal on fitness (mean effect size: -0.03, 95% CIs: -0.09 to 0.03). No [...]
Mangrove Restoration and Blue Carbon Potential in Odisha: Bridging Ecosystem Services with Climate Resilience
Published: 2025-10-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
Mangrove ecosystems along Odisha’s coastline act as frontline defenses against climate volatility, shielding communities and supporting rich biodiversity. This study synthesizes 25 years of research (2000–2025) and employs the InVEST model to assess ecological restoration outcomes, including carbon capture, water quality gains, and future climate risks. Field data indicate sequestration rates of [...]
sitetool: an application for field site selection and evaluation
Published: 2025-10-28
Subjects: Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Field studies are fundamental to ecological research, yet many studies rely on unspecified or convenience-based methods for site selection, potentially introducing bias that can compromise research results. Remote-sensing data provides a quantitative way to evaluate potential sites without expensive pilot visits, however, interacting with spatial data can be computationally complex. We present an [...]
Unravelling drivers of forest biodiversity: Contrasting effects of mean environmental conditions, environmental heterogeneity and landscape context
Published: 2025-10-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Understanding how biodiversity varies under different environmental conditions is one of the central aims of ecology. Mean environmental conditions and heterogeneity have an effect on biodiversity. Increased heterogeneity is generally associated with increased diversity, but mean conditions tend to have a stronger influence. Conditions on site are embedded into a landscape context, which adds [...]
Unsung Songbirds: Advances in the Study of Corvid Communication
Published: 2025-10-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
Historically, much research in animal communication has focused on the information content and ultimate function of vocalisations. These include defending territories, sounding the alarm, attracting mates, and advertising identity. The proximate mechanisms that shape signal production and perception—including cognitive processes and cultural transmission—have only recently started attracting [...]
Population and Evolutionary Genomics of Lizards and Snakes
Published: 2025-10-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
With an extraordinary diversity in body plans, colour patterns and lifestyles, and over 12,000 living species, squamate reptiles (lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians) provide unparalleled opportunities to apply genomic tools for answering biological questions. From desert runners to rainforest climbers, high-mountain dwellers to sea snakes, squamates have repeatedly evolved remarkable [...]
The role of socially transferred materials in translating and mediating the effects of global change
Published: 2025-10-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Almost all animal species transfer endogenously produced substances to conspecifics, either horizontally or vertically, through eggs, seminal fluid, milk, or other specialized materials. These socially transferred materials (STMs) can have substantial evolutionary consequences, are exceptionally plastic, and may enable organisms to adapt to environmental change. The world is facing rapid [...]
Faster growing and more functionally diverse: global change alters functional trait composition of mountain plant communities in the European Alps
Published: 2025-10-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Understanding how global change reshapes mountain plant communities is essential for predicting biodiversity and ecosystem function in a warming world. Using resurvey data from over 1,400 alpine and subalpine vegetation plots across the European Alps, we show that community-weighted means of key functional traits – specific leaf area, leaf nitrogen, and seed mass – have increased significantly [...]
Automated insect monitoring with camera traps is transforming ecological understanding
Published: 2025-10-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Addressing global declines in insect biodiversity requires both ecological restoration and high-quality monitoring data. While long-term participatory schemes have been foundational, recent advances in automated recording and AI-based identification offer transformative but undocumented potential. Here, we show how leveraging insect camera traps, deep learning models and statistics drives a [...]
Sexual stings in scorpions - knock-out drug or love potion?
Published: 2025-10-22
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Life Sciences
Conspecific male to female envenomation, though rare, has been documented across venomous taxa. While traditionally interpreted as a coercive mating strategy to enhance male reproductive success and to avoid cannibalism, this explanation may not fully account for the behaviour in scorpions, which exhibit minor sexual size dimorphism and complex courtship rituals. This review explores the possibly [...]
Resolving Indirect Effects of Large Herbivores on Terrestrial Ecosystem Functioning
Published: 2025-10-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
The world’s large herbivores play outsized roles in shaping ecosystem processes like primary production, decomposition, and mineralization. Contemporary management of these animals is therefore poised to be a powerful tool for holistic ecosystem management. Yet we currently lack (i) adequate understanding of indirect interactions underlying herbivore control of ecosystem processes, especially [...]