Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Zoology
Physical and Migration Metrics of White Storks (Ciconia ciconia) and the influence that landfills play in their variation
Published: 2025-07-24
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Zoology
1. White storks (Ciconia Ciconia) are a traditionally fully migratory species and their numbers in western Europe were decimated in the last century. Their numbers have since boomed and they have altered their migratory strategy to have become a partially migratory species. This change has been ascribed in large part to anthropogenic food subsidies, particularly in the form of landfill sites. 2. [...]
Genetic evidence for the rediscovery in the wild of the critically endangered Sahara killifish Apricaphanius saourensis (Cyprinodontiformes: Aphaniidae)
Published: 2025-07-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Zoology
Apricaphanius saourensis was described in 2006 from the Saoura River in western Algeria, and is currently listed as possibly extinct in the wild. We recently discovered an aphaniid population in a very isolated secondary wadi of the Guir River about 115 Km northwest of A. saourensis’ type locality, which we hypothesized could belong to A. saourensis based on images taken from living individuals. [...]
Discrepancies between wolf distribution estimates from opportunistic mortality records and probabilistic field-based surveys
Published: 2025-07-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences, Zoology
The gray wolf (Canis lupus) has expanded its distribution in Europe, where some countries implemented population monitoring schemes through structured surveys. However, increasing wolf populations has also resulted in a growing number of wolves being found dead each year. Although these opportunistic reports are promising for population monitoring, their accuracy in reflecting wolf distribution [...]
The influence of the incubation environment and parental care on Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko, Gekkonidae) development in captivity
Published: 2025-07-16
Subjects: Other Animal Sciences, Zoology
Parental effects, non-genetic effects that parents exert on their offspring, can result in adaptive phenotypes that ensure offspring survival. In captivity, reptiles often experience unnatural incubation and rearing conditions due to limited nest site choices, which can negatively impact individual development and welfare. Incubation temperature and humidity are especially critical for reptile [...]
Non-lethal imaging and modeling approaches for estimating dry mass in aquatic larvae
Published: 2025-06-28
Subjects: Developmental Biology, Integrative Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Systems and Integrative Physiology Life Sciences, Zoology
Body mass is crucial for scaling and comparing physiological rates. For example, dry body mass is important in determining an organism’s metabolic rate since it excludes metabolically inactive water weight. Obtaining repeated measurements of body mass throughout an individual’s lifetime is trivial. In contrast, we are normally able to obtain only a single estimate of dry body mass per individual [...]
The role of osmorespiratory compromise in metabolism and hypoxia tolerance of a purportedly oxyconforming teleost
Published: 2025-06-26
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Physiology, Zoology
Fish must manage the competing demands of ion balance and gas exchange across the gills – a physiological tension known as the osmorespiratory compromise. In dynamic estuarine environments, the osmorespiratory compromise may be exacerbated by variable salinity and periods of hypoxia that demand high respiratory work. This study examined whether exposure to isosmotic conditions (9 ppt) lowers [...]
Free-ranging dogs in the streets: foreseeing a multispecies coexistence crisis beyond shortsighted kindness or conflicts
Published: 2025-06-20
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Zoology
Coexistence solutions tout conflict mitigation goals for commensals and wildlife, often ignoring the lived multispecies entanglements. Tropical cities have become battlegrounds of misguided kindness and escalating conflicts with animals. Human niche expansion creates a paradox for free-ranging denizens: abundant food sources from waste, yet unprecedented ecological pressures from infrastructural [...]
Faecal microbiome varies with social group, age and bovine tuberculosis infection in the European Badger (Meles meles)
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Host-associated microbes are key components of animal health and physiology, with particular importance for determining responses to pathogen infection. The gut microbiota is highly variable at the individual level, being shaped by a multitude of factors including diet, social behaviour, and age. Yet the relative influence of these traits on microbiota composition, and the consequences of this [...]
Toxin resistance mechanisms span biological scales in the Royal Ground Snake (Colubridae: Erythrolamprus reginae)
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genomics, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Molecular Biology, Neuroscience and Neurobiology, Physiology, Systems and Integrative Physiology Life Sciences, Systems Biology, Zoology
Exposure to multiple toxic compounds imposes diverse selective pressures, potentially leading to a toxin-resistant phenotype that operates across biological levels. There are several known toxin resistance mechanisms–such as behavioral avoidance, metabolic detoxification, and target-site insensitivity. However, most studies have been conducted with exposure to a single toxin or have focused on [...]
Can physical closeness measure variation and change in pair association strength in captive geckos?
Published: 2025-05-27
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Zoology
Pair bonding is a key social behaviour but remains understudied in reptiles despite a growing body of evidence suggesting that some species exhibit complex sociality. The lack of evidence regarding the expression of pair association in social lizards species hampers our understanding of its effects on captive welfare. As a first step towards a better understanding of pair related social behaviour [...]
Acclimation to fluctuating hypoxia alters activity and escape performance, but not metabolism, in guppies
Published: 2025-05-02
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Organisms living in fluctuating environments must cope with constantly changing conditions. Here we investigated how acclimation to either fluctuating or constant oxygen affects behavioural and physiological responses to hypoxia in guppies (Poecilia reticulata). Guppies were acclimated to either fluctuating hypoxia (100% of air saturation during day to 40% at night) or constant normoxia (100% of [...]
Understanding niche conformance in fire salamander larvae: Insights from reciprocal transplant experiments
Published: 2025-04-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Life Sciences, Zoology
Amphibians are in particular vulnerable to (climatic) changes in their habitat as they are highly dependent on precipitation and temperature. The larval stage can be considered the most critical life stage in the ontogeny of most amphibians as predation is very high, and larvae are restricted to their natal aquatic habitat. The same applies for larvae of the fire salamander (Salamandra [...]
COI metabarcoding with a curated reference database and optimized protocol provides a reliable species-level diversity assessment of tardigrades
Published: 2025-03-18
Subjects: Zoology
DNA metabarcoding is revolutionizing biodiversity research by providing rapid and efficient ways of collecting species occurrence data. However, it has not yet been effectively applied to many taxonomic groups, mainly due to a significant lack of reference sequences and dedicated protocols. One such group is the tardigrades - a charismatic phylum of microinvertebrates known for their [...]
Socioecology and the role of scramble competition
Published: 2025-03-11
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Anthropology, Behavior and Ethology, Biological and Physical Anthropology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Zoology
Ecological explanations for social organization and behavior are central to behavioral ecology. Unfortunately, the continuing mismatch between theoretical predictions and some empirical data led to increasingly complex hypotheses with numerous factors, raising doubts about their predictive value or even falsifiability. Moreover, several taxon-specific socioecological hypotheses have been [...]
Tracheal chambers as a key innovation for high frequency emission in bat echolocation.
Published: 2025-03-05
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Zoology
Key innovations play a crucial role in driving biodiversity and facilitating evolutionary success by enabling organisms to adapt to various ecological niches through the diversification of phenotypic traits. These innovations have been observed in different vertebrate clades, such as mammals evolving hypsodonty to graze on contemporary grasses and bats with the evolution of echolocation, [...]