Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Bridging data silos to holistically model plant macrophenology
Published: 2025-01-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Phenological response to global climate change can impact ecosystem functions. There are various data sources from which spatiotemporal and taxonomic phenological data may be obtained: mobilized herbaria, community science initiatives, observatory networks, and remote sensing. However, analyses conducted to date have generally relied on single sources of these data. Siloed treatment of data in [...]
Extreme events drive rapid and dynamic range fluctuations
Published: 2025-01-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Climate change is altering species’ distributions globally. Increasing frequency of extreme weather and climate events (EWCEs) is one of the hallmarks of climate change. Despite species redistribution being widely studied in response to longer-term climate trends, the contribution of EWCEs to range shifts is not well understood. We outline how EWCEs can trigger rapid and unexpected range boundary [...]
Weather and catchment morphology drive thermal regime variation among sub-Arctic ponds, and possible effects on resident Arctic charr
Published: 2025-01-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Thermal stratification, which is a common feature of lentic freshwater systems, has extensive effects on ecological interactions and ecosystem function, including processes that may determine which ponds can support fish populations and affect growth, phenology, and metabolism where populations exist. Because these habitats are important for Northern freshwater fishes, improvement of our ability [...]
Bottom-up interactions in age-structured stock assessment and state-space mass-balance modelling
Published: 2025-01-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Population Biology
Age-structured stock assessment models are used worldwide to predict the likely impact of changing harvest on future fisheries yield. However, age-structured models ignore the impacts of predator consumption on prey survival (top-down impacts) and prey availability on predator growth (bottom-up impacts), whereas multispecies statistical catch-at-age models often incorporate top-down but not [...]
From Policy to Practice: Progress towards Data- and Code-Sharing in Ecology and Evolution
Published: 2025-01-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
High quality research data and analytical code are essential for ensuring the credibility of scientific results, are key research outputs, and are crucial elements to facilitate reproducibility. However, in ecology and evolution (E&E) in particular, it is currently unknown how many journals have policies on data- and code-sharing for peer review purposes, or upon manuscript acceptance. [...]
Using seed germination as a proxy of restoration success
Published: 2025-01-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecological restoration of post-mining landscapes is critical to mitigating the environmental impacts of extraction activities. This study compares the effectiveness of geomorphic restoration (GR) versus conventional restoration (CR) techniques in improving soil water availability and seed germination dynamics in the Fortuna quarry, a Mediterranean post-mining site in Spain. Soil water content [...]
Reproductive consequences of mate retention and divorce in a short-lived migratory passerine
Published: 2025-01-16
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
In socially monogamous birds, pair bond duration varies widely across species, from single-breeding associations to long-lasting, multi-year bonds. Studies on mate retention and divorce have predominantly focused on long-lived species, while research in short-lived and migratory species is limited. Consequently, the fitness consequences of divorce or remating in these species remain unclear. [...]
Population structure plays a key role in community stability
Published: 2025-01-09
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The relationship between ecosystem complexity and stability remains unresolved and a mechanistic explanation for the stunning levels of biodiversity observed in communities and ecosystems is still lacking. Recent work has shown that differences in the foraging capacity and predation risk of juveniles versus adults within populations result in larger, more complex communities than predicted by [...]
Phenological Plasticity and Its Thermal Determinants in Common Songbirds across Europe
Published: 2025-01-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Phenological plasticity—the ability of organisms to adjust breeding timing in response to environmental variability —is the primary mechanism for seasonal organisms as it enables to synchronize their life cycles with seasonal resource availability. Theory predicts that phenological plasticity should vary among populations because of environmental heterogeneity, and among species because of [...]
Does post-natal parental care influence cognitive development in a social gecko?
Published: 2025-01-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
How cognition evolved remains a debated “hot-topic” in the field of animal cognition. Current hypotheses link variation in sociality, ecology, and more generally, environmental challenges to differences in cognitive development, both between as well as within species. Research supporting the Social Intelligence Hypothesis, which states that cognition evolved to deal with social challenges, is [...]
Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals: Techniques, Challenges, and Prospects
Published: 2025-01-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Heavy metals, characterized by their high atomic mass and density, can pose significant risks to soil, water, plants, and human health. Contamination sources include manufacturing activities, mining, farming practices, and improper waste management. Metals such as arsenic, mercury, lead, chromium, and cadmium are most toxic with health consequences that can result from organ dysfunction to [...]
Interannual variability modulates Harrison’s rule between cymothoid isopod and their prawn host: Insights from a long-term stream study
Published: 2024-12-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Host body size can influence the evolution of parasite body size in many host-parasite associations, a hypothesis called Harrison’s rule (HR). However, this pattern has not always been consistently observed, with some studies finding no association between host and parasite size. Moreover, other host-related factors (e.g., sex, immunity) and environmental changes can mediate this relationship. [...]
GUBIC: the global urban biological invasions compendium for plants
Published: 2024-12-27
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Urban areas are foci for the introduction of non-native plant species, and they often act as launching sites for invasions into the wider environment. Although interest in biological invasions in urban areas is growing rapidly, and the extent and complexity of problems associated with invasions in these systems have increased, data on the composition and numbers of non-native plants in [...]
Reduced levels of relatedness indicate that great-tailed grackles disperse further at the edge of their range
Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
It is generally thought that behavioral flexibility, the ability to change behavior when circumstances change, plays an important role in the ability of a species to rapidly expand their geographic range. To expand into new areas, individuals might specifically show flexibility in dispersal behavior, their movement away from their parents to where they themselves reproduce. Great-tailed grackles [...]
Forecasting patterns of shifting biodiversity refuges in an increasingly flammable world
Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
In a warming and rapidly changing world, biodiversity is increasingly threatened by more frequent, severe, and larger fires. Variation in the life history attributes and habitat preferences of species mean that they may be affected differently by fire, and hence, decision makers must account for this. Understanding how fire affects the distribution of important areas of habitat and refuges for [...]