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Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Trophic Reorganization and Energy Deficit: A Multispecies Size-Spectrum Model of the Grand Banks

Raquel Ruiz Diaz, Jonathan C.P. Reum, Tyler Eddy

Published: 2025-09-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology

Marine ecosystems face unprecedented pressures from fishing and climate change, with both bottom-up energy transfer and top-down predation influencing ecosystem control, though their relative importance varies across space and time. The Grand Banks of Newfoundland provides a compelling case study, where capelin (Mallotus villosus) biomass collapsed by 99% in 1990–1991, followed by the collapse of [...]

Trends of ungulate species in Europe: not all stories are equal

Jacopo Cerri, Roberta Chirichella, Walter Arnold, et al.

Published: 2025-09-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Zoology

Wild ungulates have deep impacts on socio-ecological systems, and analyzing large-scale population trends in a multispecies set can identify their environmental and socio-economic drivers. We collected annual hunting bags (n = 11,046, period 1975-2018) of 7 wild ungulates of high management interest across 25 European countries. We identified different temporal trends in hunting bags and for roe [...]

Passive acoustic monitoring and deep learning reveal spatiotemporal patterns in gibbon calling behaviour associated with habitat and climate variables

Alasdair F. Owens, Erik Estrada, Kimberley Hockings, et al.

Published: 2025-09-16
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology

1. Understanding the basic ecology of endangered species is essential for effective conservation, yet this remains challenging for elusive species inhabiting tropical forests. For the endangered Bornean white-bearded gibbon (Hylobates albibarbis), basic ecological information remains limited. Most research on the species is restricted to peat swamp forests, while little is known from other forest [...]

Dietary preferences and behaviour of the Southern Lesser Bushbaby Galago moholi (Loriformes: Galagidae) foraging at an entomological light trap

Jamie C Weir

Published: 2025-09-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences

The Southern Lesser Bushbaby Galago moholi is a small, nocturnal, strepsirrhine primate, native to Sub-Saharan Africa. Previously considered a strict dietary specialist on tree exudates and insects, recent observations have revealed hitherto unappreciated plasticity in its feeding behaviour, encompassing fruits and even small vertebrates. While arthropods are an important seasonal component of [...]

Mitochondrial genome evolution: the influence of partitioning, calibration, and gene heterogeneity on pleurodontan substitution rates

Matheus Salles, Fabricius Domingos

Published: 2025-09-14
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Molecular Genetics

Substitution rate estimates are a key source of information in modern evolutionary biology, underpinning divergence time inference and other evolutionary analyses. Mitochondrial DNA nucleotide substitution rates, in particular, are commonly used for these purposes. However, these rates are typically derived from a small set of genes, closely related species, or from a limited number of model [...]

Ecosystem dynamics in dry heathlands: spatial and temporal effects of environmental drivers on the vegetation

Christian Damgaard

Published: 2025-09-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

To understand and estimate the effects of environmental drivers on temperate dry heathland vegetation, pin-point cover data from 102 Danish sites sampled during a 16-year period was regressed onto selected environmental variables. The effects of nitrogen deposition, soil pH, soil C-N ratio, soil type, precipitation and grazing on the heathland vegetation was modelled in a spatio-temporal [...]

squidSim: a flexible R package for structured and reproducible simulations in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Joel L Pick, Hassen Allegue, Yimen Gerardo Araya Ajoy, et al.

Published: 2025-09-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Statistical Methodology

1. Complex statistical methodology now allows a growing array of questions to be addressed in ecology and evolutionary biology. However, the particular question being addressed or the complex nature of the data collected often raise issues with how statistical models perform and potentially limit inference. Simulations provide a powerful approach to help empiricists understand the assumptions, [...]

Natural developmental temperatures of ectotherms: A systematic map and comparative analysis

Rebecca Raynal, Patrice Pottier, Shinichi Nakagawa, et al.

Published: 2025-09-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

In ectothermic animals, physiological processes are highly sensitive to environmental temperatures. Developmental temperatures, in particular, have large and long-lasting impacts on ectotherm phenotypes. However, most phenotypic responses are studied in the laboratory, and may not accurately reflect ecological impacts in natural environments. In this study, we provide the first synthesis of [...]

Mapping the landscape of live baitfish regulations for aquatic invasive species prevention in the United States

Victoria DeRooy, Amanda Hansen

Published: 2025-09-10
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Policy, Marine Biology, Public Policy

Aquatic invasive species (AIS) pose a significant risk to global ecosystems, economies, and societies. In the United States, the live baitfish trade is a major pathway for their spread. While the presence of invasive species and pathogens in this trade has been documented, a comprehensive, nationwide analysis of the regulations governing live baitfish has been lacking. This study fills that gap [...]

Fossils for Future: the billion-dollar case for paleontology’s digital infrastructure

Elizabeth May Dowding, Emma M Dunne, Katie Collins, et al.

Published: 2025-09-10
Subjects: Arts and Humanities, Bioinformatics, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Arts and Humanities, Physical Sciences and Mathematics

The digital revolution has transformed paleontology through the development of open-access, community-driven databases that underpin some of the most impactful research in biodiversity, climate change, and extinction dynamics. These systems safeguard high-effort, volunteered data and have revealed major macroevolutionary patterns, including mass extinctions. However, of 118 paleontological and [...]

Interaction Matrices as Unifying Tools for Navigating Ecological Complexity

Chris Terry, Andrea Tabi, David García-Callejas, et al.

Published: 2025-09-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Interaction matrices summarise pairwise species impacts within ecological communities into an analytically tractable format and have been central to advancing our understanding of ecosystem dynamics. However, despite their ubiquity, they have faced constant, recurring, criticism for oversimplifying ecological complexity. While suggested extensions address specific shortcomings, they often come [...]

Revealing the unknown world of the endangered Lear's macaw using GPS-tracking data: identification of critical habitats for conservation

Fernanda Riera Paschotto, Erica Pacífico, Thiago Filadelfo, et al.

Published: 2025-08-31
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Understanding space use and home range is essential for the conservation planning of threatened species as it helps to assess the suitability, extent, and placement of conservation areas that are imperative for species survival and protection. The Endangered Lear’s macaw (Anodorhynchus leari), a highly mobile frugivore, feeding specialist and endemic to Brazil’s Caatinga dry forest, faces ongoing [...]

High-resolution range mapping of mycorrhizal fungal species reveals systematic biases in their protection

Clara Qin, Sujai Kumar, Jinsu Elhance, et al.

Published: 2025-08-31
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies

Mycorrhizal fungi are essential to ecosystem functioning but have been overlooked in conservation agendas due to data limitations and a historical focus on plants and animals. We present the first global, species-level assessment of the area-based conservation of mycorrhizal fungi. Using 16.5 million site-by-taxon presence–absence records, we created high-resolution range maps for 189 arbuscular [...]

Frequent shifts in pollination strategy are decoupled from diversification in the terrestrial orchids

Jamie B Thompson, Eric Robert Hagen, Elizabeth Anne Forward, et al.

Published: 2025-08-27
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biology, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences

Pollinator attraction strategies are central to orchid reproductive biology and have long been hypothesised to accelerate speciation rates, particularly through specialised coevolutionary interactions. However, most macroevolutionary evidence comes from studies of individual genera or tribes, leaving broad-scale patterns unresolved. Here, we reconstruct the evolution of pollination strategy in [...]

Modelling complex habitat use for threatened bat species decision-making in landscapes with competing priorities

Robyn E Shaw, Linette Umbrello, Chris Knuckey, et al.

Published: 2025-08-26
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Zoology

Species distribution models (SDMs) provide valuable information to aid conservation decisions, particularly in landscapes where economic and biodiversity priorities compete. Generating SDMs for species that rely on discrete habitat types for different activities (e.g. roosting or foraging) can be challenging, and result in outputs that are not appropriately tailored for end use. We collated [...]

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