Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
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 [...]
Passive acoustic monitoring outperforms observer-based methods for Australian frog communities
Published: 2026-02-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Effective biodiversity monitoring is fundamental for evaluating conservation status and detecting population declines, yet traditional observer-based monitoring (OBM) is often constrained by high costs and logistical challenges resulting in limited spatial and temporal coverage. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) offers a scalable alternative, but its efficacy for frog biodiversity assessments [...]
Decoding Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities in Freshwater Ecosystems Leveraging Environmental DNA
Published: 2026-01-29
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Benthic macroinvertebrates are key indicator groups within freshwater ecosystems, with their community being closely tied to ecosystem functioning. Environmental DNA (eDNA) technology, with its high sensitivity and non-invasive nature, provides a promising tool for studying the spatiotemporal dynamics of benthic macroinvertebrate communities, their responses to anthropogenic disturbances, and the [...]
Emergent functions in the chemodiversity landscape
Published: 2026-01-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Nature produces countless metabolites that regulate organismal performance and the functioning of ecosystems. Specialised metabolites are particularly diverse and mediate ecological interactions across all geographic scales and levels of biological organisation. While chemodiversity, i.e., the richness, relative abundance and disparity of specialised metabolites within a blend of metabolites, has [...]
Temperature carryover effect revealed for marine fishes using spatio-temporal distributed lag models
Published: 2026-01-13
Subjects: Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Understanding the impact of changing temperature on population densities is necessary to predict the likely impact of climate anomalies (e.g., marine heatwaves) or forecast distribution shifts under future climate scenarios. Population densities are often analyzed using spatio-temporal models (STMs), which typically predict densities based on local habitat conditions while also estimating latent [...]
Ecological examples of nonstationarity, nonlinearity, and statistical interactions in dynamic structural equation models
Published: 2026-01-13
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecologists are adapting structural causal modelling for spatial, phylogenetic, and time-series analysis. However, ecological extensions of path analysis and structural equation models (SEM) typically assume that interactions (“path coefficients”) are stationary, linear, and additive, while ecological and evolutionary dynamics are often nonstationary, nonlinear, and include statistical [...]
Active layer microbial inocula restore missing functions across thawed permafrost soils
Published: 2026-01-07
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Soil Science, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Microbial dynamics in thawing permafrost induce a climate feedback of uncertain magnitude. Estimates rely largely on incubations of experimentally-thawed permafrost soils, which may have limited microbial functionality after millennia of frost. In nature, however, seasonally-thawed active layer microorganisms may enter the underlying permafrost soil and introduce missing functions. Here we test [...]
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 [...]
Community structure of macroinvertebrates in freshwater rock pools of the Brazilian semiarid region
Published: 2025-12-23
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Freshwater rock pools (FRPs) are temporary aquatic environments that provide refuge for biodiversity in regions with low precipitation. The macroinvertebrate communities of FRPs in the Brazilian semi-arid region constitute an important link between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, given their dependency on both to complete their life cycles. The knowledge about FRPs and their resident biota [...]
Scale mismatches limit the efficacy of customary management
Published: 2025-12-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Indigenous lands are some of the most biodiverse areas in the world, providing protection for many species and spillover benefits for wider communities. However, these areas face increasing threats. Indigenous communities face many challenges in protecting and managing these lands, particularly in the form of power imbalances and spatial, temporal, and functional-conceptual mismatches. 2. [...]
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 [...]
The potential of fish families as surrogates for species and functional diversity in biomonitoring impacted Amazonian streams
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Compared to the accelerated progress of environmental degradation in Amazonian ecosystems, the development of studies to support conservation efforts is slow, because it demands substantial financial and logistical investment. Intending to contribute to stream monitoring with rapid analyses, this study aimed to test the feasibility of using species composition for taxonomic families as biological [...]
Functional or Dysfunctional? A Refreshed Perspective on Functional Feeding Groups
Published: 2025-12-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Functional feeding groups (FFGs), introduced in the 1970s, provided a framework for understanding freshwater ecosystems by classifying macroinvertebrates according to feeding mode and diet. Since then, the FFG approach has been widely applied and has significantly advanced our knowledge of ecosystem processes and functions. However, the framework represents a simplified view of complex trophic [...]
Biochar–Microbial Synergistic Systems for Nitrogen and Phosphorus Removal in Polluted Waters: Mechanisms, Studies, and Insights
Published: 2025-12-11
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Microbiology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Eutrophication caused by increasing non-point source pollution has resulted in the accumulation of nitrogen and phosphorus in water bodies, leading to severe algal blooms, oxygen depletion, and ecosystem degradation. However, conventional remediation technologies often face limitations in efficiency and sustainability. Biochar, derived from organic waste, has gained attention for its strong [...]
Quantifying Three Decades of Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining Frontiers in the Guiana Shield (1995–2024)
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 and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) is a leading driver of tropical deforestation and forest degradation, yet its spatial and temporal dynamics remain largely underexplored. Here, we present a pan-regional, annual time-series analysis of ASGM expansion across rainforests of the Guiana Shield (Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana) from 1995 to 2024. Using Landsat imagery, we trained a deep [...]