Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biodiversity
TABMON: design and deployment of a transnational passive acoustic monitoring network for European birds
Published: 2026-01-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
1. Ecological surveys are often fragmented, costly, and limited in scale, leading to large and long-standing knowledge gaps which threaten our ability to properly safeguard biodiversity. 2. Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) has promised to deliver automated biodiversity monitoring, but networks are rarely deployed on scales that can offer truly novel insights due to scalability and [...]
Spatial Expansion and Ecological Correlates of Invasive Crayfish Procambarus clarkii and Pacifastacus leniusculus in Mediterranean Rivers of Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula)
Published: 2026-01-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Invasive freshwater crayfish are among the most impactful non-native taxa in European river systems, yet quantitative assessments of their spatial expansion and environmental drivers remain scarce in Mediterranean regions. We investigated the expansion dynamics and environmental drivers of two invasive North American crayfish, Procambarus clarkii and Pacifastacus leniusculus, in rivers of [...]
Marine biodiversity indicators and online data knowledge systems
Published: 2026-01-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Marine Biology
Coastal marine ecosystems and biodiversity are changing rapidly under climate forcing, resource use, pollution and habitat modification. Monitoring these changes, and tracking progress across policy targets, remain constrained by uneven data coverage, fragmented observing networks and inconsistent measurement practices. International policy frameworks, most prominently the Kunming-Montreal Global [...]
Actionable inference for biodiversity change hinges on representative data and model design
Published: 2025-12-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Amidst the global biodiversity crisis, there is high demand for spatially explicit biodiversity indicators. Global models that quantify impacts of human pressures provide important insights for conservation, but their performance in spatial projections has not been systematically tested. W evaluate this using PREDICTS data, finding that, despite land-use impacts in line with previous research, [...]
Idiosyncrasies of Cistanthe ipniana Hershk. (C. sect. Rosulatae; Montiaceae)
Published: 2025-12-22
Subjects: Biodiversity
Cistanthe ipniana Hershk. [C. sect. Rosulatae (Reiche) Hershk.; Montiaceae] was described briefly based on collections from Huasco Province, Atacama Region, Chile. The species is distinctive in having flower morphology essentially identical to that of C. litoralis and C. longiscapa, to which it is very closely related genetically, but a distinctive vegetative form identical to that of C. [...]
Local data matters: Improving biodiversity risk and impact assessment through a data quality focus
Published: 2025-12-22
Subjects: Biodiversity
Widespread degradation of nature has increased pressure on corporations and financial institutions to assess and mitigate their biodiversity impact, however, collecting relevant local data can be costly. The increasing availability of biodiversity and Earth observation (EO) provide a route to cost effective impact assessment via extrapolation using existing data and statistical modeling. Through [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Deciphering the patterns and drivers of tardigrade diversity along altitudinal gradients
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Altitudinal gradients offer a unique opportunity to understand the drivers of species richness, as mountain regions cover vast areas and contribute disproportionately to global terrestrial biodiversity. However, most studies have focused on larger organisms, often neglecting microscopic animals such as meiofauna also in mountain biodiversity research. In this study, we investigated patterns of [...]
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 [...]
The weak driver conundrum: data archiving and biological phenomena impact macrogenetic findings
Published: 2025-12-10
Subjects: Biodiversity, Evolution, Genetics, Genomics, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Macrogenetics seeks to identify the global drivers and patterns in intraspecific genetic diversity, yet many reported patterns are weak or inconsistent. To achieve multispecies global inference, many macrogenetic studies leverage open sequencing data that can suffer from archiving biases. It remains unclear if macrogenetic inconsistencies are innate genetic phenomena, or are the product of open [...]
The Plant Communities of Oman’s Central Coastline: A Baseline Ecological Assessment amid Rising Threats
Published: 2025-12-10
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Desert Ecology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
In recent decades, the botanical knowledge within the Sultanate of Oman has advanced considerably. However, the coastal vegetation is comparatively understudied with much of the country’s extensive coastline still undocumented. This is despite Oman’s coast being faced with a plethora of threats including development, overgrazing and the invasive species Neltuma juliflora. This study presents the [...]
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 [...]
From patterns to predictions: A framework for the spatial epidemiology of wildlife diseases
Published: 2025-12-08
Subjects: Animal Diseases, Biodiversity, Epidemiology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Population Biology, Statistics and Probability, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Preventive Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health, Zoology
Wildlife diseases pose a significant threat to biodiversity conservation, public health, and livestock. Spatial epidemiology provides a robust framework to understand disease dynamics and guide policy and management. However, the rapid proliferation of spatial methods has largely occurred in isolation across disciplines, leaving the field without a unified framework that connects these approaches [...]
Habitat connectivity shapes biodiversity outcomes in Indonesia’s community-managed forests
Published: 2025-12-08
Subjects: Biodiversity, Forest Management
1. Social forestry is increasingly promoted as a means to achieve equitable resource governance while contributing to biodiversity conservation. Yet, empirical evidence on how effectively community-managed forests support biodiversity remains limited, particularly in tropical regions. 2. We assessed mammal communities in two contrasting social forestry contexts in Sumatra, Indonesia: (1) a [...]