Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Comparing mean species abundance and the biodiversity intactness index to guide robust biodiversity investment decisions
Published: 2025-12-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Mean species abundance (MSA) and the biodiversity intactness index (BII) are two leading biodiversity metrics used to quantify how species composition differs between a control site and an impacted site. Both are proposed for global biodiversity monitoring, are used by companies to create corporate biodiversity impact accounts, and are being considered by financial institutions seeking to [...]
Evolving on two fronts: Bill Burger on the nature of oak species
Published: 2025-12-16
Subjects: Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
William Burger wrote in 1975, “I believe that the classical species-concept in Quercus defines a very real population system and that it evolves on two fronts. One is that of continuing to adapt to a niche that differs slightly from its close relations. The second is in sharing the broader evolutionary advances of these same close relations that together comprise the genetically isolated [...]
Business as usual will commit biodiversity to genetic erosion: parallels from climate change for proactive conservation
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
Biodiversity and climate resilience are tightly linked. Genetic diversity enables species to adapt in a rapidly changing world, yet its loss (genetic erosion) remains the least visible dimension of the biodiversity crisis. Although climate science has long recognised that past emissions can lock in future climate impacts (“committed climate change”), the idea that biodiversity also faces future, [...]
A protocol for biodiversity-informed wildlife disease surveillance
Published: 2025-12-13
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences
Land use and climate change are increasing the risk of spillover of zoonotic disease into human populations. However, we lack actionable information about the prevalence of pathogens in wildlife populations for most of the globe, challenging our ability to implement strategies to prevent zoonoses. Even when this data exists, it has historically been sampled opportunistically and without guidance [...]
A One Health Sustainability framework for nature-based wellbeing
Published: 2025-12-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Mental and Social Health, Public Health
Human health benefits of nature are increasingly documented, yet the ecological conditions underpinning these benefits and the sustainability of nature-based interventions remain poorly measured. We introduce an integrated One Health Sustainability framework that links human health outcomes with ecological integrity, landscape pressures, and sustainability dimensions. This framework provides a [...]
R for marine ecologists: wrangling Earth System Model outputs
Published: 2025-12-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
This one-day, hands-on workshop introduces marine ecologists to the use and application of Earth System Model (ESM) outputs using R–a free, open-source programming language widely used in marine ecology. Designed for participants with basic or no prior experience in climate modeling, our workshop: 'R for marine ecologists: wrangling Earth System Model outputs' provides a comprehensive foundation [...]
Functional or Dysfunctional? A Refreshed Perspective on Functional Feeding Groups
Published: 2025-12-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Functional feeding groups (FFGs), introduced in the 1970s, provided a framework for understanding freshwater ecosystems by classifying macroinvertebrates according to feeding mode and diet. Since then, the FFG approach has been widely applied and has significantly advanced our knowledge of ecosystem processes and functions. However, the framework represents a simplified view of complex trophic [...]
Behavioural repertoire and the onset of precocious sexual behaviours in juvenile ruffs (Calidris pugnax)
Published: 2025-12-10
Subjects: Animal Studies, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Adult phenotypes are shaped by developmental processes during early life. This also applies to reproduction and dominance-related behaviours before maturation, called precocious sexual behaviours. However, beyond largely anecdotal reports, the onset of such behaviours is rarely studied. Here we document the development of precocious sexual behaviours in the ruff Calidris pugnax, a lekking [...]
Acorn availability reduces agricultural damage by ungulates
Published: 2025-12-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Human-wildlife conflicts, particularly the damage to agricultural crops caused by ungulates, pose significant ecological and economic challenges. Understanding the role of natural food availability in driving these conflicts is important for developing effective management strategies. We investigated how the pulsed availability of forest tree seeds, i.e., mast seeding, influences the extent of [...]
Life-history-specific thresholds for the Fishing Mortality Index: validation on 209 stocks
Published: 2025-12-09
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology
The exploitation fraction E = F/(F+M) has served as a standard metric for assessing fishing pressure since Gulland (1971), with E = 0.5 widely adopted as a precautionary threshold. However, E compresses the relationship between fishing mortality (F) and natural mortality (M) into a single dimension, obscuring magnitude differences across life histories. We introduce the Fishing Mortality Index [...]
Quantifying Three Decades of Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining Frontiers in the Guiana Shield (1995–2024)
Published: 2025-12-09
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Remote Sensing, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) is a leading driver of tropical deforestation and forest degradation, yet its spatial and temporal dynamics remain largely underexplored. Here, we present a pan-regional, annual time-series analysis of ASGM expansion across rainforests of the Guiana Shield (Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana) from 1995 to 2024. Using Landsat imagery, we trained a deep [...]
There is no taxon-free lunch
Published: 2025-12-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Over the last few decades, the term “taxon-free” has been widely used in paleoecological literature to highlight reasoning via ecomorphological or other functional traits of organisms as opposed to reasoning via taxonomic affiliations and phylogenetic conservatism. In practice, however, “taxon-free” inferences are very rarely free from using taxonomic information and occasionally they are even [...]
Gene expression and structural differences underpinning black and white colouration in spiders
Published: 2025-12-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
The presence of multiple colour variants within a single population, known as colour polymorphism, is a striking example of intraspecific phenotypic variation and a model for studying evolutionary processes. These processes depend on the underlying mechanisms such as the genes and pigments involved; but we currently lack such information for non-model groups such as arachnids. We examined the [...]
Butterfly abundances but not patch occupancy buffered by vegetation heterogeneity during climatic extremes
Published: 2025-12-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
As extreme climatic events are becoming more frequent and intense, we need to understand what mechanisms could buffer populations from climate change impacts to ensure their persistence. Fragmented populations may be especially vulnerable to climate change, as exemplified by species with metapopulation dynamics, whose persistence is determined by a precarious balance between frequent local [...]
POLLEN ANALYSIS AS A REMOTE BIOLOGICAL SENSOR: USING MELISSOPALYNOLOGY AND SURFACE SOIL DATA FOR AN INTEGRATED LANDSCAPE SCALE VEGETATION ASSESSMENT IN SOUTH INDIA
Published: 2025-12-04
Subjects: Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences, Other Plant Sciences, Plant Sciences
We use pollen assemblages from two sources, surface soil and bee pollen to characterize modern pollen spectra from contrasting landscapes, evaluate their potential as biological proxies complementing each other in reconstructing vegetation comprised of anemophilous and entomophilous plants. The bee pollen assemblages are from honeycombs and corbicular loads from Apis cerana and A. florea. We try [...]