Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Impact of warming on functional traits of a keystone grazer in Arctic lakes
Published: 2026-08-07
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Laboratory and Basic Science Research Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Temperature rise is one of the most pronounced abiotic changes currently affecting Αrctic ecosystems. Knowledge about the adaptation capacity of their key species is urgently needed to better understand the ecological consequences for these sentinel ecosystems. Previous work on a keystone zooplankton grazer, the obligatory parthenogenetic Daphnia pulicaria, from a lake in South-West Greenland [...]
Dark invasions as cryptic components of biological invasions
Published: 2026-08-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Understanding and managing biological invasions typically requires knowledge of species records, known impacts, recognized pathways and definitions of non-native status, yet this information is rarely complete or without uncertainties. We develop the concept of dark invasions to describe a suite of hidden or underacknowledged aspects of biological invasions that are rarely quantified because [...]
Bias and complementarity in species occurrence data from citizen science, museum, and social media collections
Published: 2026-08-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Effective biodiversity policy and spatial planning depend on species occurrence data. Yet data that informs conservation decisions typically originate from heterogeneous sources that potentially introduce systematic biases that shape downstream ecological inference and policy outcomes. To explore these potential biases, we analysed reptile location data from Bangladesh and India – a mega-diverse [...]
The Global Ecosystems Atlas: comprehensive and systematic mapping of Earth's ecosystems
Published: 2026-07-31
Subjects: Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Geography, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Halting and reversing biodiversity loss is central to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, yet a lack of consistent, spatially comprehensive data on ecosystem distributions has undermined our ability to monitor progress against its goals and targets. Here we introduce the Global Ecosystems Atlas initiative, convened by the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) in [...]
More trees, more moths: how urban treescapes can help reverse moth declines
Published: 2026-07-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Moths are undergoing widespread declines in abundance, biomass and diversity, with consequences for pollination, herbivory and trophic interactions. Yet moth conservation remains poorly integrated into biodiversity policy and practice, particularly in urban environments. Here, we argue that trees offer an underused, but very timely, opportunity to support urban moth communities. Trees provide [...]
Fire regime assumptions can drastically influence pyrodiversity-biodiversity relationships in heterogeneous forest landscapes
Published: 2026-07-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Forest Management, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Background. Higher spatio-temporal variation in fire regime attributes in fire-dominated landscapes (pyrodiversity) is thought to promote higher levels of biodiversity – the pyrodiversity-biodiversity hypothesis – yet this effect likely varies across taxa and systems. As a result, ecosystem-based management in heterogenous, fire-dominated forests requires understanding the strength and shape of [...]
Microhabitat structure predicts eye presence in bryophyte-dwelling tardigrade communities
Published: 2026-07-20
Subjects: Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Microscopic invertebrates often exhibit variation in eye presence within closely related taxa, yet the ecological correlates of this variation remain poorly understood. In tardigrades, eyes may occur or be absent even among species inhabiting similar environments. Because structures that enable seeing are frequently linked to environmental conditions, we investigated which factors influence eye [...]
Integrity Matters: Riparian Forest Preservation Influences Body Condition and Parasites of Amphibians
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Riparian forests are essential for the structure and dynamics of head streams, performing an important role in maintaining biodiversity in fragmented forests. Integrity condition influences the stream quality and the distribution of amphibians and their responses to infections. To investigate this premise, we evaluated parasite infection parameters in amphibians through six riparian areas with [...]
Within- and across-genus scaling of vessel diameter reveals consistent hydraulic responses to rainfall
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
· Xylem vessel diameter and lumen fraction are expected to track water availability via the hydraulic safety–efficiency trade-off yet observed trait–rainfall relationships are weak and inconsistent. This discrepancy may partly reflect the conflation of within- and across-lineage effects in comparative datasets. · We tested this possibility by analysing hydraulically weighted vessel [...]
Food resources shape bird assemblages, rendering trophic structure globally convergent
Published: 2026-07-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Species persist only when energy resources are available and organisms have traits to exploit them. Because resources such as fruit or carrion differ in abundance and diversity, general principles of energy flow and niche theory should shape differences in species richness among trophic guilds within assemblages. Yet, this hypothesis remains empirically untested. Here, we analyze 31,251 local [...]
Sniffing for fungi: Use of a conservation dog uncovers high regional truffle diversity
Published: 2026-07-09
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Hypogeous aromatic fungi (‘truffles’) contribute significantly to overall fungal diversity but are difficult to find using traditional survey methods because they fruit underground, leading to under-documentation and a lack of understanding of truffle ecology. Truffles evolved to emit strong aromatic compounds to attract mycophagists for spore dispersal, a trait that culinary truffle harvesters [...]
Dark fragmentation: daylighting hidden disconnections in river networks
Published: 2026-07-09
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
River fragmentation is a central driver of freshwater biodiversity loss, yet its true extent is often underestimated due to incomplete barrier inventories, static river maps, and simplified assumptions about barrier passability. We propose dark fragmentation as the hidden component of river-network disconnection arising from three interacting dimensions: inventory darkness caused by unmapped [...]
Species diversity reduces risk in tropical forest restoration: a portfolio effect across heterogeneous sites
Published: 2026-06-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Assisted restoration is essential for recovering degraded tropical forests. Biodiversity-stability theory predicts that functionally diverse communities should produce more reliable, predictable outcomes than monocultures, but broad-scale field experiments in tropical restoration are scarce. We established 120 plots spanning five planting treatments (two monocultures – of a fast-growing [...]
Natural history models of bird–building collisions
Published: 2026-06-25
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Building collisions kill an estimated 1.28–5.19 billion birds annually in North America, making them the second leading cause of human-related avian mortality. Yet the behavioral and ecological drivers of collisions remain difficult to disentangle, as most knowledge derives from carcass surveys rather than direct observations. Here, we propose a conceptual framework that synthesizes four natural [...]
robust.prioritizr: Robust Systematic Conservation Prioritization
Published: 2026-06-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Climate change poses significant threats to biodiversity. To ensure the long-term persistence of species, protected areas must be established in locations that will safeguard suitable habitats in the future. Although statistical models can predict where such habitats may occur under different future scenarios, designing protected areas that can effectively protect these habitats across a wide [...]