Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
drmr: A Bayesian approach to Dynamic Range Models in R
Published: 2026-04-14
Subjects: Biodiversity, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Predicting how species distributions will respond to environmental change is a critical challenge. Dynamic Range Models (DRMs) offer a powerful mechanistic approach by explicitly modeling the influence of environmental drivers on demographic processes. However, the widespread adoption of DRMs has been hindered by their inherent complexity and a critical gap in the available software. While many [...]
Why are embodied social signals concentrated towards the rostral region? — The rostrum concentration hypothesis
Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biological Psychology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Although frequently embodied, the relationship of animal social communication with body layout has rarely been investigated from a unified cognitive perspective. Across animal taxa, socially relevant signals, ranging from facial expressions and gaze to colouration and morphology, are strikingly concentrated towards the anterior region of the body. Here, we propose the Rostrum Concentration [...]
Mitigating the Pollinator-Prey Conflict in Drosera capillaris: A Study on Physiological Plasticity and Phylogenetic Conservatism within Drosera
Published: 2026-04-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Premise: Carnivorous plants face a dilemma: acquiring nutrients from insect prey while simultaneously relying on insect pollinators for reproduction. Thus, carnivorous plants have evolved mechanisms to avoid/reduce pollinator-prey conflict. This study aims to understand how carnivorous plants deal with this conflict through: macroevolutionary adaptations (floral stalk length) or short-term [...]
Northern Sierra Historical Range of Variability and Current Landscape Departure
Published: 2026-03-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
This report describes modeling historical range of variability (HRV) and current departure for landscapes within the Northern Sierra ecoregion in California and Nevada. We discuss the need for this study with respect to the historical and contemporary context of the ecoregion, including background on the natural range of variability concept and the use of simulation modeling to quantify it. For [...]
How environmental conditions affect the acquisition, establishment, and persistence of microbial endosymbiosis in insects
Published: 2026-03-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Microbiology
Long-term interactions between insect hosts and their internal microbial symbionts are ubiquitous. As these interactions support many aspects of the insect host biology, restrictions to their establishment and maintenance could have important consequences to the survival of insects and functioning of ecosystems. The current literature provides extensive evidence that rapidly changing [...]
Average, variability, and extremes: A framework to quantify microclimate temperature modulation
Published: 2026-03-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Microclimate, the climatic conditions experienced by organisms, can differ substantially from the macroclimate measured by weather stations. Microclimate modulation is the modification of the microclimate by environmental conditions. Despite its ecological importance, there is currently no standardized method for quantifying microclimate modulation, which limits comparability across studies. [...]
Towards a better understanding of adaptation: Problem description, partial solutions, and recommendations
Published: 2026-03-20
Subjects: Animal Experimentation and Research, Animal Studies, Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Developmental Biology, Evolution, Human Ecology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Genetics and Genomics, Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration, Population Biology, Science and Technology Studies
This paper is the product of an international workshop aiming to make progress in our general understanding of adaptation. We met from 5-7 February 2025 in Hannover (Germany), funded by the foundation “Volkswagen Stiftung”. For our group of theoretical and empirical biologists, social scientists, and philosophers of science we set up a program to facilitate communication and collaboration between [...]
The scent of survival in a warming world: how monoterpenes drive thermal adaptation in thyme
Published: 2026-03-18
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Plant Sciences, Physiology, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences, Population Biology
1 Monoterpenes are key plant secondary metabolites with well known defensive and ecological functions, yet their role in abiotic stress tolerance remains poorly understood. In many Mediterranean plants, monoterpene composition varies markedly within and among species and is associated with climatic gradients, suggesting that these compounds may mediate plant responses to extreme heat. 2 We [...]
Understanding Conservation Decision-makers’ Preferences for Evidence
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Policy, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Economics, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Effective conservation depends on decisions informed by evidence that is both trustworthy and relevant to specific local contexts. However, little is known about which characteristics of evidence conservation decision-makers prioritise when deciding what information to trust. 2. We explored decision-makers’ preferences for different attributes of evidence using a discrete choice experiment in [...]
Global latitudinal and bathymetric gradients in body size among cartilaginous fishes (Gnathostomata: Chondrichthyes)
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Understanding the macroecological rules governing body size variation across environmental gradients has long been a central focus of biology for centuries. Bergmann’s rule – the tendency for animals to reach larger body sizes in colder environments – has been studied in endotherms but with mixed support. However, phylogenetically informed tests of this rule in ectotherms remain scarce, and there [...]
Transposable elements as drivers of reproductive isolation: A framework for testing hybridization-induced escalation of genetic conflicts
Published: 2026-02-26
Subjects: Evolution, Genetics, Genomics, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Contrary to long-held views, the exchange of genetic diversity between species by hybridization is now recognized as an important process contributing to the evolution of biodiversity. However, hybridization has molecular consequences beyond the exchange of genetic variation. The clash of divergent genomes upon hybridization can escalate genetic conflicts previously resolved in parental species – [...]
The Individualised Niche in Motion; quantifying individualised niches with movement data
Published: 2026-02-26
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Evolution, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Individuals of the same species often differ consistently in their use of resources, their responses to environmental gradients, and their movement decisions. Between-individual variation across niche axes has been shown to have important ecological consequences. Yet practical frameworks that translate modern tracking data into operational, comparable measures of niche individual specialisation [...]
Beyond Observed Diversity: A Completeness-Based Invasion Theory
Published: 2026-02-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Charles Elton proposed that species-rich communities resist invasion better, but support is mainly from local studies, possibly because studies use observed richness alone, ignoring the dark diversity. I propose Completeness-Based Invasion Theory, linking invasibility inversely to community completeness, an index linking observed and dark diversity, enabling unified insights across scales.
Influence of fire history on reproductive traits in a congeneric obligate seeder and facultative resprouter tree species
Published: 2026-02-20
Subjects: Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Plant Sciences
In fire-prone regions globally, evolution of plant traits that confer resilience to historical fire regimes is widespread. However, many common plant species are currently declining due to a mismatch between historical and contemporary fire regimes. These changes threaten long term community trajectories of plants and the animal species relying on them for food or habitat. Understanding plant [...]
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, the harm an infection causes to its host, is a cornerstone concept in ecology and evolution, yet it remains difficult to quantify because infection impact is multidimensional, dynamic, and context-dependent. Infections can reduce host performance through multiple, partially redundant routes (including mortality, fecundity loss, behavioural impairment, and physiological disruption), [...]