Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biodiversity
High-Resolution Coastal Blue Carbon Site Intelligence: A Multi-Attribute Geospatial Pipeline for National-Scale Mangrove Assessment
Published: 2026-02-25
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Life Sciences, Systems Biology
The voluntary blue carbon market is severely bottlenecked by outdated methodologies that apply broad, coast-level carbon averages across low-resolution spatial units, systematically failing to account for micro-site ecological realities and critical socio-political constraints. To resolve this structural deficit, this paper introduces the High-Resolution Geographically-Explicit Blue Carbon [...]
Notes on the taxonomy of the Cistanthe philhershkovitziana Hershk. species complex (C. sect. Cistanthe; Montiaceae)
Published: 2026-02-24
Subjects: Biodiversity
The Cistanthe philhershkovitziana Hershk. species complex (C. sect. Cistanthe; Montiaceae) here is informally circumscribed to include four named species, its namesake plus C. behacheliana Hershk., C. gbifiana Hershk., and C. reshetiana Hershk. The species occur in coastal Chile in the littoral and adjacent riparian zones, coastal plains, and coastal range matorral, extending some 600 km in [...]
Composite virulence: useful metric or conceptual trap?
Published: 2026-02-20
Subjects: Animal Diseases, Animal Experimentation and Research, Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Immunopathology, Life Sciences, Medical Microbiology, Microbiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Immunology and Infectious Disease, Parasitic Diseases, Parasitology, Pathogenic Microbiology, Plant Pathology, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Zoology
Virulence, defined as the harm an infection causes to its host, is central to evolutionary ecology, yet it remains difficult to quantify because infection impact is multidimensional, dynamic, and context-dependent. Composite measures have therefore emerged to summarise multiple traits into a single estimate of infection-induced harm. However, every composite embeds biological assumptions about [...]
Insect monitoring without pitfalls: seven steps for robust insect sensing systems
Published: 2026-02-13
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biodiversity, Computer Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Data shortages fuel controversy about an ongoing insect biodiversity crisis. Insects are immensely diverse and functionally critical for ecosystems, yet data on insect trends remain patchy and biased. Sensors, ranging from camera-equipped light traps to weather radar stations, are set to transform entomological data collection. Meanwhile, AI models that extract biological information from sensors [...]
Assessing how far a ‘Net Zero’ strategy moves an organisation towards ‘Nature Positive’ contributions
Published: 2026-02-13
Subjects: Biodiversity
‘Net Zero’ and ‘Nature Positive’ frameworks guide organisations to contribute towards climate and biodiversity goals, but are often implemented separately. It remains unclear to what extent achieving Net Zero strategies can help organisations to contribute towards Nature Positive goals. We apply footprinting methods to an illustrative case study (Wadham College, Oxford) to quantify whether a [...]
A systematic map and comprehensive database of animal organ sizes
Published: 2026-02-12
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health
The relationship between individual organ size and overall body size in animals is a fundamental biological phenomenon that spans multiple disciplines. However, a comprehensive synthesis of the sources of variation in organ-specific scaling remains lacking, even among mammals, the most extensively studied vertebrate group. We developed a systematic map and compiled a large database of paired [...]
Comments on “Mateus-Aguilar, B., Díaz-Salazar, A. F., Andrade-Rivas, F., Batista, N. M., Cárdenas-Navarrete, A., Arenas, A. D., ... & Echeverri, A. (2025). Assessing Biocultural Diversity Across Scales Using Ecological Indicators. Ecological Indicators, 176, 113616.”
Published: 2026-02-11
Subjects: Anthropology, Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Should hunters fear the wolf? Effects of wolf recolonization on ungulate harvests in a multi-species European landscape
Published: 2026-02-10
Subjects: Biodiversity, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Zoology
1. The recolonization of European landscapes by the gray wolf Canis lupus raises questions about the ecological effects of predators and their impact on human interests such as large-game hunting bags, leaving room for alarmism among hunters. 2. We investigated the impact of wolf on recreational hunting by using long-term (2006-2023) and high-resolution (234 hunting districts) hunting bag data on [...]
Life cycle complexity drives variation in thermal tolerance and plasticity
Published: 2026-02-09
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Accumulating evidence suggests that heat tolerance varies substantially across insect development, yet patterns of variation remain difficult to generalise across species. We discuss how the diversity of insect developmental strategies shapes both the intensity and predictability of thermal environments across ontogeny, and how this likely generates variation in heat tolerance, plasticity, and [...]
Biodiversity footprint of public procurement in Finland
Published: 2026-02-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Halting biodiversity loss requires systematic action from all sectors of society. The public sector is a significant actor globally in creating markets for goods and services, public procurement representing on average 13–20% of national gross domestic product. In this study, we assessed the biodiversity footprint of public procurement in Finland in 2022. We applied the consumption-based [...]
The origins and diversification of hummingbird pollination in Bromeliaceae
Published: 2026-02-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Plant Sciences
Bromeliaceae are a model group for understanding explosive Neotropical diversification, combining remarkable ecological breadth and high species richness, despite relatively recent evolutionary origins. Multiple drivers are hypothesised to accelerate bromeliad diversification, and hummingbird pollination is frequently proposed to be among the strongest. However, our understanding has been limited [...]
The conditional ecology of pest suppression: A general mechanistic framework for predicting landscape effects on biological control
Published: 2026-02-03
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology
Landscape heterogeneity often increases natural enemy abundance, yet its effects on crop pest suppression are strikingly inconsistent across empirical studies. We developed a trait-based simulation framework to identify the general mechanisms linking landscape structure to realized pest load. Across >150 in silico experiments, we show that landscape attributes influence biological control by [...]
Factors influencing the use of scientific evidence in conservation practice and policy: insights from a systematic map
Published: 2026-02-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Evidence-based conservation can lead to better outcomes for biodiversity, through the integration of scientific evidence with other forms of knowledge to make transparent and effective decisions. However, despite efforts to promote evidence-based practice, many management and policy decisions do not incorporate scientific information. To strengthen the interface between science and [...]
The true scope of global wildlife trade is obscured by data gaps
Published: 2026-01-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Overexploitation of wildlife is a major driver of biodiversity loss. International wildlife trade is regulated and monitored at local, national, regional and global scales through a variety of mechanisms, including the UN, Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs), with CITES playing a key role. Whilst databases and systems are available to measure, monitor, and manage legal trade, the data for [...]
Inspiring systematic inclusion of individual animal states to enhance the quality of research
Published: 2026-01-23
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology
Studies on animals continue to attract criticism over data quality, reproducibility and generality of findings, yet one source of variation remains rarely addressed: differences in individuals’ affective states. In this paper, we suggest that evaluating affect should be considered standard good practice in ecological and behavioural research with wild animals, alongside familiar variables such as [...]