Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biodiversity
Recolonisation dynamics of grey wolves: delayed recovery in a Central European country
Published: 2025-11-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Population Biology, Zoology
Grey wolves have been recovering throughout Europe over the last decades, widely portrayed as a conservation success story. We evaluated the trends and demography of two wolf populations that recolonised the Czech Republic between 2011/2012 and 2022/2023, integrating a variety of fieldwork and laboratory methods including snow tracking, camera trapping, telemetry and non-invasive genetics, with [...]
How much monitoring is needed to reliably track progress towards genetic diversity targets?
Published: 2025-11-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, Population Biology
Achieving global biodiversity targets hinges on indicators of biodiversity change that convert raw data into reliable numbers that can shape policy, conservation, management, and, ultimately, the future of biodiversity worldwide. Indicators can only be used confidently if they detect and summarise biodiversity trends as intended, given the available data worldwide. Knowing whether indicators can [...]
Emerging Applications of Large Language Models in Ecology and Conservation Science
Published: 2025-11-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The emergence of large language models (LLMs) marks a major development in artificial intelligence, with potentially transformative implications for ecology and conservation science. Built on advanced deep-learning architectures, these models can support a wide range of tasks, from analysing unstructured texts to enhancing biodiversity monitoring and generating policy-relevant insights. This [...]
Natural Heritage: A Teaching Game For Biodiversity Conservation
Published: 2025-11-04
Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics, Biodiversity, Environmental Studies, Higher Education
The potential for computer games to serve as effective learning and teaching tools is now widely acknowledged. Here, we present ‘Natural Heritage’, an educational turn-based strategy game about biodiversity conservation. In it, the player takes on the role of an elected policy maker who has to balance ecological and economic targets while managing regional land use. The game aims to teach key [...]
Going with, or going to the dogs: City Serenade of Multispecies Survival
Published: 2025-11-03
Subjects: Animal Studies, Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Community-based Research, Human Ecology, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Population Biology, Urban Studies and Planning, Zoology
1. As tropical cities rapidly urbanise, multispecies coexistence faces unprecedented challenges. Ground-dwelling (dogs), arboreal (macaques), and aerial (black kites) urban commensals navigate complex social-ecological systems shaped by anthropogenic resource provisioning, cultural practices, and architectural constraints. Despite escalating human-animal conflicts—20 million annual dog bites in [...]
Beneath the Pavement: Understanding mycorrhizal fungi in urban ecosystems and the path forward
Published: 2025-11-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Studies, Human Ecology, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
Urban expansion is reshaping ecosystems worldwide, yet the responses of mycorrhizal fungi—key mediators of plant–soil interactions—remain poorly understood. In this review, we synthesize current knowledge on the environmental and ecological factors shaping mycorrhizal fungal diversity, distribution, and function in cities. We highlight how greenspace and landscape features—including plant [...]
A theoretical framework for multispecies coexistence in large herbivores based on functional traits and dietary data
Published: 2025-10-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Modern Coexistence Theory (MCT) has long aimed to predict community structure, but empirical support remains scattered across unconnected case-studies from a narrow subset of systems where it is possible to quantify niche and fitness differences (e.g., pairwise interactions between fast-growing plants or protists). We sought a framework to apply MCT to a broader range of ecological scenarios by [...]
Automated insect monitoring with camera traps is transforming ecological understanding
Published: 2025-10-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Addressing global declines in insect biodiversity requires both ecological restoration and high-quality monitoring data. While long-term participatory schemes have been foundational, recent advances in automated recording and AI-based identification offer transformative but undocumented potential. Here, we show how leveraging insect camera traps, deep learning models and statistics drives a [...]
SEICAT+: a comprehensive assessment framework for positive socio-economic impacts of alien species
Published: 2025-10-19
Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics, Biodiversity, Community-based Research, Demography, Population, and Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Nature and Society Relations
Despite their recognized harms to humans and biodiversity, alien species outside of domestication/cultivation can also provide socio-economic benefits, which are essential to consider when identifying stakeholder conflicts and informing managers and policymakers. These benefits often result from the enhancement of ecosystem services, such as the provision of food, timber, and other natural [...]
Rebuilding Diversity in the Anthropocene
Published: 2025-10-14
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Rapid changes driven by the Anthropocene—including shifts in climate, nutrients, habitats, and species composition—are causing severe biodiversity loss while creating new ecological opportunities. The balance between short-term ecological shifts in realized niches and long-term evolutionary changes in fundamental niches determines diversification. In the Anthropocene, however, this balance is [...]
A Typology of Corporate Actions for a Nature-Positive Future
Published: 2025-10-08
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Studies, Sustainability
Reaching the global goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss will require a step-change in corporate action. Whilst clear guidance already exists for companies to take responsibility for and mitigate biodiversity loss caused by their own operations, delivering global nature-positive outcomes requires higher ambition and extended accountability for impacts beyond companies’ direct control. [...]
Ecosystem structure can affect human health: a longitudinal study on Green Prescriptions
Published: 2025-10-08
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Health Psychology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences
The role of Nature in supporting human life, health, and well-being has been recognized and appreciated since ancient times and has recently undergone scientific investigation, which highlighted the human dependence on Nature to nurture mental and physical health. Among Nature-based interventions that aim at exposing people to the natural environment, Green Prescriptions (GRx) represent a [...]
Ciclos irregulares de financiamento no Brasil são uma barreira à conservação da biodiversidade e à liderança global do país
Published: 2025-10-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
O financiamento estável para a pesquisa científica é fundamental para a conservação da biodiversidade e a formulação de políticas baseadas em evidências. No Brasil, ciclos inconsistentes de financiamento para bolsas contribuem para a fuga de cérebros de Pesquisadores em Início de Carreira (ECRs, do inglês “Early Career Researchers”), que poderiam impulsionar avanços significativos na pesquisa em [...]
Global biodiversity measurement to meet scale-dependent needs and opportunities
Published: 2025-10-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Business, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In the face of rapid ecological decline, biodiversity information is essential for safeguarding life on Earth. Although this information is increasingly valued by governments, businesses, and other stakeholders, it remains insufficiently accessible and usable. Because the rarity and functions of biodiversity vary greatly across land- and seascapes, the global and local ecological and social [...]
Extensive climate-induced range shifts in butterflies across the globe
Published: 2025-09-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ongoing global change is leading to widespread species redistribution1,2. Range shift attribution, however, remains poorly resolved, partly due to the strong variation in range shift detection signals in space, over time and across the tree of life2. We compiled range shift data in 15 languages and with expert assessments, encompassing 1,758 butterfly species from 109 countries (~10% of the known [...]