Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Faecal microbiome varies with social group, age and bovine tuberculosis infection in the European Badger (Meles meles)
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Host-associated microbes are key components of animal health and physiology, with particular importance for determining responses to pathogen infection. The gut microbiota is highly variable at the individual level, being shaped by a multitude of factors including diet, social behaviour, and age. Yet the relative influence of these traits on microbiota composition, and the consequences of this [...]
Macroalgae morphological complexity affects the functional diversity of epifaunal annelid assemblages
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology
Host structural complexity influences the diversity of associated epifaunal species, but its role in shaping functional trait diversity remains underexplored. We developed a trait-based framework to assess whether macroalgal structural complexity significantly influences the functional assembly of marine annelid epifauna in a sandstone reef system at Enseada dos Corais Beach (NE Brazil). Sampling [...]
Nutritional needs and social bonds: how early-life dependencies shape meerkat sociality
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Across species, social systems vary in their extent of interactions, competition, cooperation, and cohesion. Though there has been considerable research on overall social structures, the dynamics of how an individual's social niche develops during early life and how biological needs of offspring shape sociality has received less attention. In this study, we took a longitudinal approach targeting [...]
High-frequency eDNA metabarcoding survey data of coastal fish across the Japanese Archipelago
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The Japanese archipelago, spanning over 3,000 km from subarctic to subtropical zones (approximately 24°N to 45°N), hosts a diverse array of coastal fish communities shaped by pronounced latitudinal gradients. Here, we present a high-frequency environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding dataset of coastal fishes collected across the archipelago. Using the MiFish primer set targeting a hypervariable [...]
Multiple global-change drivers and cascading effects in Mediterranean ecosystems: Lessons from an iconic national park
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Historically, Mediterranean systems, particularly the Mediterranean Basin, have been substantially impacted by multiple regional-scale disturbances resulting from complex interactive effects of global-change drivers. However, such effects are typically studied on isolated groups of organisms, often disregarding how ecological processes such as biotic interactions affect ecosystem responses to [...]
Light color and nutrient availability alter trophic transfer from algae to zooplankton
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Freshwater plankton communities experience both natural variation of light color and nutrient availability and shifts due to eutrophication and brownification. These changes can alter algal community structure, but whether variation of light color impacts trophic transfer from algae to zooplankton is unknown because most research ignores color and focuses on light intensity. We used microcosms [...]
Enhancing motivation to learn marine ecology and increase ocean literacy through Virtual Reality in Higher Education
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly recognised as a tool for enhancing engagement and motivation in education. This is particularly true where access to experiential learning is limited, as is often the case in marine ecology courses. However, the effectiveness of VR for teaching and learning in higher education is poorly understood. Here, we use the Explore experience developed by The Hydrous [...]
Elevating the importance of Risk of Bias assessment for ecology and evolution
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are key evidence synthesis methods informing research and policy. An assessment of the Risk of Bias (RoB) in included studies is normally considered an essential component of these. However, RoB assessment is rare in ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), and tools from other fields are seldom adopted. To identify reasons for this limited uptake, we surveyed [...]
Comparing statistical methods for detecting weather cues of mast seeding in European beech (Fagus sylvatica) across Europe
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Understanding the drivers of mast seeding is important for predicting reproductive dynamics in perennial plants. Here, we evaluate the performance of four statistical methods for identifying weather-associated drivers of annual seed production, i.e, weather cues: climate sensitivity profile, P-spline regression, sliding window analysis, and peak signal detection. Using long-term seed production [...]
Avifaunal diversity in urban parks of Delhi is shaped by both anthropogenic and natural factors
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Urbanization leads to fragmentation and reduction of natural habitats which become islands of remnant biodiversity. As predicted by the Theory of Island Biogeography (TIB), fragment area and fragment isolation are major predictors of bird species richness in urban and rural habitats. This study is to understand patterns in avifaunal composition in select urban parks specifically in terms of area [...]
Characterising the structural complexity across major habitats of Tenerife, Spain
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Life Sciences
Understanding biodiversity changes across ecosystems requires the consideration of various biodiversity dimensions, such as habitat structural complexity – the degree of heterogeneity in the distribution of plant material in three-dimensional space. Yet, its inclusion in long-term biodiversity monitoring on oceanic islands remains limited. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) can be used to quantify [...]
Toxin resistance mechanisms span biological scales in the Royal Ground Snake (Colubridae: Erythrolamprus reginae)
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genomics, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Molecular Biology, Neuroscience and Neurobiology, Physiology, Systems and Integrative Physiology Life Sciences, Systems Biology, Zoology
Exposure to multiple toxic compounds imposes selective pressures across biological levels. There are several known toxin resistance mechanisms–such as behavioral avoidance, metabolic detoxification, and target-site insensitivity but an integrative approach to consider multiple toxins and resistance strategies. Predators of amphibians, for example, must counteract multiple chemicals secreted by [...]
Genomic data confirms that mutation cannot restore genetic diversity lost through population bottlenecks
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genomics, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics, Population Biology
Maintaining within-species genetic diversity is a critical goal of biodiversity conservation as it determines a species’ ability to adapt to environmental change. Without human intervention, isolated populations can only recover genetic diversity post-bottleneck through the accumulation of new mutations over evolutionary timescales. Using recent estimates of mutation rates from major genomic [...]
Historical and Potential Future Importance of Marine Megafauna Subsidies to Terrestrial Ecosystems
Published: 2025-06-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Marine megafauna exert tremendous influence on the structure and function of ocean ecosystems, yet mounting evidence shows that their ecological impacts also cross the land-sea interface and modify terrestrial ecosystem dynamics. Marine megafauna connect land and sea by serving as large, calorically-rich food sources for terrestrial consumers and by transferring marine-derived nutrients onto land [...]
Colorful birds face heightened extinction risk around the world
Published: 2025-06-10
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Ornithology
Many of the functional traits that mediate extinction risk across the tree life relate indirectly to a species’ ability to persist in a changing world. Yet, there are certain traits such as coloration that directly affect human interactions with wildlife. Here, we use an existing dataset of color metrics for 4334 passerine bird species combined with global functional trait data to determine [...]