Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Reanalysis of “Historical redlining is associated with increasing geographical disparities in bird biodiversity sampling in the United States”
Published: 2025-12-18
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ellis-Soto et al. (2023, Nature Human Behaviour) investigated whether the density and completeness of bird biodiversity sampling from citizen science observations across US cities covary with 1930s neighbourhood classifications based on perceived mortgage investment risk, a practice known as “redlining”. They claimed that worst-rated neighbourhoods were the most under-sampled urban areas for bird [...]
Predicting unobserved driver of regime shifts in social-ecological systems with universal dynamic equations
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ecosystems around the world are anticipated to undergo regime shifts as temperatures rise and other climatic and anthropogenic perturbations erode the resilience of present-day states. Forecasting these nonlinear ecosystem dynamics can help stakeholders to prepare for the associated rapid changes. One major challenge is that regime shifts can be difficult to predict when they are driven by [...]
The Origins of Human Cooperation Through Intergroup Relations in Our Closest Living Relatives
Published: 2025-12-10
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Cooperation is the foundation of human society, yet our understanding of its evolutionary origins and underlying mechanisms remains limited. This review draws on intergroup encounters in our closest evolutionary relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus), to better understand the evolutionary pressures and processes that shaped human cooperation. In chimpanzees, [...]
Predicting Indoor Air Pollution Reduction Behavior Among Urban Residents of Bangladesh Using an Extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) Model
Published: 2025-11-23
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Indoor air pollution (IAP), with elevated levels of fine particulate matter, significantly impacts public health in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) such as Bangladesh where reliance on biomass fuels and inadequate ventilation leads to high pollutant concentrations exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. While technological interventions have been explored, behavioral [...]
Barking up the wrong tree? Indian street dog woes are emblematic of ecological governance failures for multispecies coexistence
Published: 2025-11-13
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
On August 11, 2025, India’s Supreme Court mandated relocating 2.5 million dogs to address bites and zoonotic disease/death concerns—but reversed course twice since then—revealing that solutions require sequential waste management, education, and sterilization that prioritize addressing root demographic and behavioral drivers over reactive management.
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 [...]
Kinship, Distance, and Reciprocity Underpin Economic Support in the Pantanal Wetland
Published: 2025-10-28
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
The behavioural phenomenon of cooperation has been a focus of study in a variety of disciplines. Evolutionary anthropologists often use quantitative methods to test hypotheses on cooperation, grounded in theories such as kinship and reciprocal altruism: people are more likely to help those to whom they are related and who repay the cost of the altruistic act. That said, empirical results are [...]
Kin selection and sexual conflict shape variation in breastfeeding duration
Published: 2025-10-24
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Breastfeeding provides substantial benefits to infants, yet mothers frequently cease breastfeeding earlier than health guidelines recommend. In cooperative breeding systems, maternal decisions such as the duration of breastfeeding are influenced not only by her own costs and benefits, but also by those of other household members, which are weighed by their relatedness to the child and the [...]
The True Cost of the Chip: Connecting AI’s Unchecked Growth to Land Use, Water Rights, and Indigenous Sovereignty in Chile’s Lithium Triangle
Published: 2025-10-14
Subjects: Business, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The exponential growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is driving an “AI Mineral Rush” for hardware materials like lithium, essential for data center batteries. However, lithium extraction imposes immense, often obscured, environmental and social costs. This paper investigates these externalities in Chile’s Salar de Atacama, a core region of the “Lithium Triangle.” We connect global AI demand to [...]
A Modern Reanalysis of McManus’ Genetic Model of Handedness
Published: 2025-10-13
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
We replicate and critically evaluate McManus’ (1985) single-locus genetic model of handedness, which remains influential in laterality research. Using the original familial and twin datasets, we reproduce McManus’ parameter estimates while correcting reporting errors and miscalculations. Our reproduction confirms that the model is reproducible but reveals sensitivity to dataset inconsistencies [...]
Challenges faced by ecologists: gender-based perceptions throughout the stages of the academic career in Brazil
Published: 2025-10-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Although women often outnumber men in the early stages of academic careers in ecology, they remain significantly underrepresented in senior positions. In Brazil, women comprise the majority of graduate students in ecological sciences but hold fewer senior academic roles, receive less research funding, and face greater obstacles to visibility and recognition. To understand the factors contributing [...]
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 [...]
Women's Role in Elasmobrnach Fishery in Indonesia
Published: 2025-09-29
Subjects: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sociology
Women play a significant role in the fisheries chain, particularly in trade and processing, yet they are still not adequately acknowledged. Indonesia is the world's largest shark fishing country, with an average annual production exceeding 100,000 tons. The shark fishery, on its right, is a controversial and often misunderstood topic, not to mention the involvement of vulnerable groups in the [...]
Bridging Knowledge Systems to Guide Natural Resource Decision-Making
Published: 2025-09-24
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
International agreements call for inclusion of Indigenous and local knowledge in resource management, yet practical approaches remain underdeveloped. We argue that knowledge co-assessment offers a feasible pathway. Drawing on examples from practice in the Arctic, we provide guidance for equitable engagement, communication, and scaling, ensuring legitimacy, inclusivity, and actionable governance.
Feasibility of heart rate variability analysis for welfare assessment in dolphins: a preliminary report
Published: 2025-09-24
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Monitoring stress and emotional states in dolphins is an important step toward improving animal welfare in managed care. Established physiological approaches, such as measuring cortisol from blood or fecal samples, have provided valuable information for stress assessment. Suction-based devices have also enabled cardiac monitoring, contributing to our understanding of diving physiology and [...]