Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Animal Sciences
Relational acoustic geometry of over 20,000 common nightingale strophes: a framework for continuous vocal analysis
Published: 2026-09-14
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Ornithology
Large collections of complex animal vocalizations are often organized through predefined song categories, which provide powerful descriptive units but do not directly characterize continuous and representation-dependent relationships within the acoustic material. This study presents a field-grounded framework for examining such relationships without assigning vocalizations to categories in [...]
The Little Reptilian Lion: A Literature Review and Field Perspective on the Behavioral Ecology of Agama picticauda (Peter's Rock Agama)
Published: 2026-09-11
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Life Sciences, Zoology
Agama picticauda (Peter's Rock Agama) is one of West Africa's most abundant and visually striking lizards, yet remains profoundly understudied at the level of behavioral ecology. This review draws on published literature and extended personal field observation of wild populations in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, to document the species' behavioral complexity and argue for dedicated long-term research. [...]
Moose on the loose: personality-driven space use and activity in a large, free-roaming cervid
Published: 2026-09-10
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Zoology
Background Animal personality (i.e., consistent inter individual behavioural and physiological differences that are repeatable over time and across contexts) has important implications for ecological processes, yet remains poorly studied in large herbivores such as cervids. Methods In this study, we investigated personality and the occurrence of a behavioural syndrome in 33 free ranging female [...]
Interacting effects of canopy geometry and display activity timing shape conditions for visual signalling in Victoria’s riflebird
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Integrative Biology, Ornithology, Zoology
Lighting conditions in forests are highly variable in both space and time and depend on the interacting effects of canopy geometry, weather, and the time of day. This has strong implications for visual signalling, because different species sharing the same forest habitat may display in dramatically different microhabitats favouring disparate signal phenotypes. However, relatively little is known [...]
How closed is “closed”? Ambiguity in British Columbia’s Closed Containment aquaculture regulations
Published: 2026-08-13
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Zoology
We examine disease-transmission risks to wild salmon associated with containment technologies proposed in 2025 under British Columbia’s transition away from open-net pen aquaculture. To ensure consistent terminology, and to avoid the mischaracterization of marine “semi-closed” flow-through systems as “closed containment,” we clarify categories of aquaculture production technologies and compare [...]
Reproduction is more sensitive to warming than adult lifespan across invertebrates
Published: 2026-08-11
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Entomology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Studies estimating the effect of temperature on wild animal populations typically focus on survival as a proxy for population health. However, high and low temperatures can also negatively influence animal reproduction, and recent work suggests that the thermal sensitivity of reproduction is more important for population persistence that the thermal sensitivity of survival in some species groups. [...]
Seasonal biases in data collection cause conceptual gaps in animal ecology
Published: 2026-07-20
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
1. Animal life cycles are structured into seasons with major differences in behaviour. Yet much of the data that inform policy and predictive modelling is drawn from studies conducted when animals breed. This temporal research bias overlooks key seasonal and life stages in the ecology of animal populations, such as high over-winter mortality periods. Yet, it is unclear whether this bias also [...]
From a review to the field: Alternative coping styles under urbanisation
Published: 2026-07-06
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Endocrinology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physiology, Population Biology, Systems and Integrative Physiology Life Sciences, Zoology
Under human-induced rapid environmental changes, behavioural and physiological responses of organisms are key to maintain homeostasis and minimise fitness loss. Both responses can be integrated, into among-individual correlations forming stress-coping styles or syndromes (SCS). Such SCS emerge from genetic correlations or adaptive trade-offs. In the context of environmental challenges, more [...]
From social experience to social behaviour: hormonal and behavioural phenotypes during adolescence in male guinea pigs
Published: 2026-06-02
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Adolescence is the transition from juvenility to adulthood and is characterised by prominent endocrine, neural and behavioural alterations. Thus, adolescence represents a sensitive phase during which social experiences can shape endocrine and behavioural phenotypes. Although the influence of the social environment during adolescence has been widely investigated, most studies assessed such effects [...]
Assessing the sensitivity and robustness of the Living Planet Index through simulated population dynamics: strengths, stability, and challenges
Published: 2026-05-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Understanding population change through time is crucial for effective conservation of biodiversity. The Living Planet Index (LPI) is a key indicator for tracking global species abundance trends under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, offering a picture of population change over time. However, the sensitivity of the index to population abundance being recorded as absent in a [...]
Representational limits in detecting ecological change
Published: 2026-04-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biology, Biotechnology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Food Science, Forest Sciences, Genetics and Genomics, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Laboratory and Basic Science Research Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Neuroscience and Neurobiology, Other Life Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Physiology, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Systems Biology
Detecting ecological change remains a persistent challenge, even in systems with extensive monitoring data and increasingly sophisticated analytical tools. Uncertainty is usually attributed to stochasticity, limited observations, or imperfect models. Here, I argue that an additional and largely overlooked constraint arises from representational limits: systematic ways in which graphs, indicators, [...]
The promise and challenge of environmental epigenomics in a rapidly changing world
Published: 2026-04-22
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Environmental Studies, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
There has been a fast-paced research effort on the role of epigenetic mechanisms in facilitating organisms’ capacity to cope with rapid environmental change, highlighted by several recent reviews and special issues on this topic. What is important, along with this momentum, is to pause and reflect on both the promises and challenges of linking detailed molecular mechanisms to broad patterns of [...]
Plastic shifts in thermal preference and thermoregulation strategy across ontogeny in an invasive fly
Published: 2026-04-21
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Behavioural thermoregulation allows ectotherms to escape extreme or seek optimal temperatures. Its precision can impact survival and fitness under changing conditions and its plasticity can be an adaptive strategy when the plasticity of thermal limits is insufficient to buffer against warming. We explore the developmental plasticity of behavioural thermoregulation strategies using the invasive [...]
Silver spoon effect: Natal noise is associated with telomere dynamics in adult birds
Published: 2026-04-14
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology
Anthropogenic noise disturbance on wildlife is of growing concern. Environmental noise during incubation can negatively impact fitness in wild animal populations. Here, we hypothesised that chronic noise introduces stress through oxidative damage to wild bird embryos, resulting in short-term fitness reductions and long-term physiological changes. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the [...]
Harry Potter shows mirror to dire wolf de-extinction: perils of chasing ghosts of species’ past
Published: 2026-04-08
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Abstract 1. Conservation faces a paradox. As urban expansion and industrial-scale agriculture erode relational values between people and nature, a privileged minority dictates global biodiversity narratives. This shift is reinforced by media and technological interventions that frequently override lived, local experiences. For instance, gene editing tools like CRISPR are incorporated for [...]