Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Coevolution of social network structure and life history in toothed whales
Published: 2025-12-18
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Marine Biology
Toothed whales offer a 34 million year-long natural experiment for the evolution of complex mammalian societies. However, quantitative comparative analyses of social structure in these species are lacking. Here, we draw on existing social network analyses to compare social structure across toothed whales. We consider published measures of two social network traits across all toothed whales: [...]
Moving Target(s): One Health at changing human-livestock-wildlife interfaces in tropical ecosystems
Published: 2025-12-18
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Food Science, Life Sciences, Systems Biology
One Health approaches currently conceptualized for Western landscapes require fundamental rethinking for tropics, where human-livestock-wildlife interfaces exist as variegated mosaics rather than discrete zones. This overview examines why tropical ecosystems involve (i) Human mobility patterns shifting continuously through rural-urban migration and globalization (ii) Livestock health [...]
Scale mismatches limit the efficacy of customary management
Published: 2025-12-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Indigenous lands are some of the most biodiverse areas in the world, providing protection for many species and spillover benefits for wider communities. However, these areas face increasing threats. Indigenous communities face many challenges in protecting and managing these lands, particularly in the form of power imbalances and spatial, temporal, and functional-conceptual mismatches. 2. [...]
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: Oak species and syngameons
Published: 2025-12-16
Subjects: Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
William ‘Bill’ 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 [...]
Committed genetic erosion: parallels from climate science for proactive conservation
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
While climate science recognises that past emissions lock in future impacts ("committed climate change"), the idea of lagged losses is less embedded in biodiversity policy. This is particularly true for genetic diversity loss (genetic erosion), the least visible dimension of the biodiversity crisis. To highlight this risk, we introduce the term "committed genetic erosion": future losses set in [...]
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 [...]
Three Decades of Artisanal Gold Mining Reveal Contrasting Outcomes for Conservation Areas and Indigenous Lands
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 gold mining (AGM) is a critical driver of tropical forest disturbance, yet is challenging to quantify. Using deep learning and three decades of satellite imagery (1995-2024), we mapped AGM expansion across three contrasting countries in northern Amazonia. We evaluate mining trends, and extent across differing land designations and associated impacts on carbon stocks. AGM area increased [...]
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 [...]