Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Meta-analysts must lead by example and embrace all FAIR principles
Published: 2026-09-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Meta-analyses rely on comprehensive reporting of results and data in primary studies. They should therefore also strive for exemplary reporting and follow FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) for data sharing. Yet, despite growing calls for open, reliable, and transparent science, the quality, reporting and FAIRness of meta-analyses in ecology, evolution, and [...]
Assessing habitat associations of critically endangered big-headed turtles to support grassroots river conservation
Published: 2026-09-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Modern wildlife conservation relies primarily on state-run protected areas and hunting regulations, whereas grassroots initiatives to protect ecosystems from various threats such as large-scale infrastructure development are underrecognized and receive limited scientific support. We studied critically endangered big-headed turtles (Platysternon megacephalum) to support a grassroots river [...]
From population trends to biodiversity changes: synthesizing multi-species signals of collapse
Published: 2026-09-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Taking the pulse of biodiversity is no small feat, and abundance time series are some of the most valuable data we have to measure change. Biodiversity changes are often complex, with some species declining while others grow, leading to a reorganisation of the network of interactions between species. The infamous decline of Atlantic cod in the Newfoundland shelf groundfish community between 1981 [...]
Social transmission of fear is disrupted by pharmaceutical pollution
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Social information transfer enables rapid responses to threats and underpins collective predator avoidance across taxa. Yet whether the growing threat of environmental pollutants, such as pharmaceuticals, disrupt this process remains unknown. Here, we show that the widespread antidepressant pollutant amitriptyline disrupts fear contagion—the automatic matching of an individual’s behavioural state [...]
Temperature extremes in the Gulf of Maine: A synthesis of marine heatwaves, cold-spells, and ecological impacts
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Long-term environmental change has been altering ecosystem function and phenology globally. Short-term temperature pulses, often called extreme temperature events, can accelerate impacts of long-term change on ecosystems by forcing rapid changes in food webs, triggering range shifts, and disrupting reproductive cycles. Marine ecosystems at the confluence of large global currents are particularly [...]
Populations of cooperatively breeding birds are buffered against annual variation in precipitation and temperature
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Cooperative breeding is a reproductive system wherein other than parents care for offspring. It has been suggested to provide advantages in harsh and unpredictable climates. Support for this idea stems from detailed population studies, or phyla-wide comparative studies, but both approaches are insufficient to assess the demographic benefits of cooperative breeding. Here, we use abundance [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Sex-specific divergence in microhabitat use and activity patterns in fire salamanders: temperature matters
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Human-driven climate change and habitat degradation cause alterations in the spatial and temporal availability of natural resources, forcing wildlife to adjust their interactions with the environment in order to survive. To identify changes and promote effective conservation measures within the limited suitable habitats available, it is crucial to better understand habitat use. Activity patterns [...]
Multivariate social strategies buffer the fitness consequences of phenotype–environment mismatches
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
How organisms adapt to environmental change is a fundamental question in biology. Environmental shifts frequently induce mismatches between an organism's phenotype and its surroundings, including the social environments created by interacting individuals. Such mismatches can be mitigated by modifying one's own phenotype through plasticity, adjusting the environment, or selecting environments [...]
From Nesting to Emergence at a Half-Century Communal Wood Turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) Nesting Site: Species Phenology Across a Full Protected Season, Hatchling Consumption by Yellow Jackets (Vespula sp.), and Nest Protection by Overlaid Netting
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Long-term records that connect a turtle nesting season to the hatchling emergence it produces, at daily resolution and across multiple species, are rare. At a communal nesting site in Washburn County, Wisconsin, protected and monitored by our family for over five decades, we surveyed both ends of the 2026 season daily: the nesting period (25 May–13 June; 171 turtle sightings of five species, 143 [...]
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. [...]
Biodiversity isn’t measured in tons: Making sense of nature in the context of sustainable agriculture
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies
In this review, we articulate several important, but often overlooked concepts, trends, and perspectives in the biodiversity monitoring space, specifically in the context of transforming agriculture and the wider food system. We describe the common approaches to biodiversity monitoring — those focused on species, communities, functions, habitats, etc — and the methods and tools commonly used to [...]
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 [...]
How many ways are there to be a phage?
Published: 2026-08-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Virology
The search for predictive rules for how microbiomes assemble and function rarely include their most abundant members: phages. Nearly a century of phage research has yielded few ecological principles for the impacts of phages within microbial communities – sequencing surveys resolve phage presence but not phage activity, while mechanistic studies of relatively few model phages provide insights [...]