Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The role of environmental gradients in the ontogenetic shift of wood traits from seedlings to adults in two temperate tree species
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Tree development, or ontogeny, involves concurrent changes in plant size and environmental conditions, both of which can influence wood structure and function. Disentangling the factors underlying ontogenetic variation in wood traits remains a major challenge. This is important because wood underpins hydraulic efficiency, hydraulic safety, and mechanical support - functions critical for tree [...]
Where are the hake going? How age, environmental signals, and shelf habitat shape Pacific Hake (Merluccius productus) summer distribution
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology
Sustainably managing a multinational fishery on a transboundary, relatively long-lived and migratory fish stock is challenging, especially in a changing ocean environment. In a warming world, Pacific hake (Merluccius productus, Merluccidae), jointly managed by the U.S. and Canada, have been hypothesized to move north. However, in recent years the proportion of Pacific hake in the northern part of [...]
Potential impacts of Ground-mounted photovoltaic panels on land cover and carbon storage in Norway – a scenario analysis
Published: 2026-10-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Energy Policy, Environmental Policy, Life Sciences, Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
In cool-temperate and boreal regions, ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) is rapidly emerging as a new land use, but planning-relevant evidence on land requirements, siting options, and land-system impacts remains limited. Based on an analysis of built and planned ground-mounted PV projects in Norway (n = 77), we quantify size, capacity density, land-cover composition and net greenhouse gas effects, [...]
Anthropogenic food subsidies shape parental foraging and offspring development in an opportunistic bird
Published: 2026-10-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Humans are transforming ecosystems by providing predictable anthropogenic food subsidies (PAFS), such as at landfills, now used by multiple animal taxa. In breeding animals, parental landfill use can influence offspring development, yet few studies have quantified parental landfill use and linked it to parental care and offspring development, behaviour or survival, limiting our understanding of [...]
Disease-Dependent Social Responses to Local Disease Composition in a Wild Reptile
Published: 2026-10-09
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Emerging infectious diseases can generate persistent and locally heterogeneous patterns of risk across animal populations, yet how animal social behaviour varies under these conditions remains poorly understood. When pathogens persist in the environment, individuals may need to respond to disease conditions at fine spatial and temporal scales rather than rely on fixed social strategies. Here, we [...]
Spatially explicit sampling of AM fungal biomass reveals links to community characteristics and landscape context
Published: 2026-10-09
Subjects: Agriculture, Biochemistry, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are important contributors to soil functioning, yet their biomass and diversity may respond differently to environmental characteristics and historical legacies. Understanding these relationships is necessary for evaluating AM fungi as indicators of soil health. We investigated relationships among AM fungal biomass, community properties and natural habitat [...]
Projecting kinship networks through time in variable environments
Published: 2026-10-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Kinship networks shape key biological and social processes, yet their dynamics under changing environments remain poorly understood. Like population abundances, kinship structures are determined by past vital rates. Matrix population models provide a powerful framework for projecting population abundances through time and analysing the effects of environmental change on population dynamics, but [...]
Social decision-making in a freshwater gastropod
Published: 2026-10-09
Subjects: Animal Studies, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Animals are hypothesized to plastically adjust their social behaviour expression dependent on their environment and their phenotype to ensure that its benefits outweigh its costs. There is a strong research bias towards socially complex vertebrates and eusocial insects. Thus, here we study mollusks, a taxon whose social behaviour is less well studied. As predation is one of the strongest drivers [...]
Encounter behaviour shapes ecological distributions
Published: 2026-10-09
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecology’s foundational models keep only the first moment of the stochastic distributions of encounters. Yet, encounter behaviour (how animals search, aggregate, hide and move) sets the whole distributional shape: zeros, variance, skew and, where particular behaviours build them, heavy tails. That shape decides vital rates, persistence and spatial pattern, because the rates involved are [...]
Does female personality drive mate preference and reproduction in wild house mice?
Published: 2026-10-07
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Comparative Psychology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social Psychology
Personality, consistent individual behavioural variation, shapes how individuals move and engage with their socioecological environment, potentially influencing how they assess and choose mates. This makes personality a potential target of sexual selection. Indeed, personality is linked to partner choice, pair formation and mating outcomes in both human and non-human animals. However, it remains [...]
Amphibians and reptiles in bird nests and bird-excavated cavities: a mini review
Published: 2026-10-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Bird nests and bird-excavated cavities provide suitable environments for egg incubation and nestling development. However, bird-created structures are also exploited by a wide range of organisms, including taxa that are phylogenetically distant from the avian constructors. While birds, mammals, and invertebrates are well documented as secondary users of nests and cavities, the occurrence of [...]
Pine wilt disease as a holobiont disorder: microbiome assembly as a potential management target
Published: 2026-10-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Pine wilt disease (PWD), caused by the pinewood nematode (PWN) Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, continues to expand globally despite decades of pathogen-focused management. Here, we propose that disruption of microbiome assembly within the pine holobiont may contribute to disease progression and help explain variation in disease outcomes and responses to microbial interventions. Drawing on recent [...]
Network structure and species connectivity drive asymmetric fitness outcomes in coevolving antagonistic communities
Published: 2026-10-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Antagonistic interactions are fundamental drivers of ecological community structure, generating strong reciprocal selective pressures that shape the evolution of functional traits across interacting species. Despite their ecological importance, the coevolutionary dynamics of antagonistic communities remain far less understood than those of mutualistic systems. Here, we develop a trait-based [...]
Reframing Mangroves as Socio-Ecological Coastal Infrastructure: Development and Application of a Six-Pillar Socio-Ecological Infrastructure Framework
Published: 2026-10-05
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Mangrove ecosystems are critical components of coastal socio-ecological systems, providing shoreline protection, biodiversity support, carbon sequestration, and livelihood opportunities for coastal communities. However, increasing pressures from climate change, coastal development, and environmental degradation threaten their resilience and long-term sustainability. This study proposes a [...]
Plasticity Decay and Attenuated Recovery (PDAR): A Hybrid Dynamical Model for the Historical Accessibility of Evolutionary Space
Published: 2026-10-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The evolutionary history of life is marked by a pronounced temporal asymmetry: an early, disproportionate generation of major morphological novelty, followed by extensive taxonomic diversification that does not appear to be accompanied by comparable expansion of morphological disparity. This paper develops a minimal hybrid dynamical model, termed Plasticity Decay and Attenuated Recovery (PDAR), [...]