Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Research Methods in Life Sciences
Uptake of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in plants: A systematic review and meta-analysis research protocol
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) transfer from contaminated environments into plants, contributing to food chain accumulation and an exposure pathway central to human health risk assessment. Regulatory risk assessments commonly use plant bioconcentration factors (BCFs) to estimate dietary exposure and support the derivation of health-based guideline values, yet they have not been [...]
TRIPLE-IJ and SHIFT as a coupled framework for characterising entomopathogenic nematode performance under abiotic stress
Published: 2026-08-26
Subjects: Agriculture, Entomology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) of the families Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae are widely recognised as promising biological control agents, yet the translation of laboratory-demonstrated virulence into consistent field-scale efficacy remains an unresolved challenge. A central reason for this gap is the fragmented way EPN performance is conventionally characterised: infectivity and [...]
Contextual evidence for categorising interactions and guiding their discovery
Published: 2026-08-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Ecological interactions shape community dynamics and stability, yet many go unrecorded. Link prediction methods attempt to tackle incomplete knowledge, but predictions are only conjectures, and validating them all in the field is neither feasible nor desirable. Furthermore, interactions differ in the action needed for their detection. Validation therefore must be guided by ecological and [...]
Using large language models to identify reporting challenges for Target 6 implementation: a short validation against human assessment
Published: 2026-08-13
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biodiversity, Research Methods in Life Sciences
National reports and related biodiversity policy documents contain important information on implementation barriers, but extracting comparable evidence across many countries is timeconsuming. We tested whether large language models (LLMs) could provide a reliable firstpass synthesis of reported challenges relevant to Target 6 of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Human assessor [...]
Assessing veracity of web-based citizen science projects: An audit study of eBird
Published: 2026-08-04
Subjects: Research Methods in Life Sciences
1. Uncertainty in data accuracy and lack of diversity among participants are two common concerns in citizen science projects. But what if the methods used to simultaneously maximize data quality and user participation lead to unbalanced user experiences and biased data? While many studies focus on advancing techniques for analyzing large and noisy datasets, methods are needed to test the veracity [...]
Microplastics in farmlands: A model of conditional fragmentation and source estimation
Published: 2026-07-21
Subjects: Agriculture, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Soil Science
Microplastic (MP) pollution in agricultural systems has emerged as a critical environmental concern, yet quantitative models capturing the complex dynamics of MP fragmentation and accumulation remain underdeveloped. Here we present a cross-scale modeling framework that solves fragmentation mechanisms and input sources at the same time, and simulates the temporal evolution of MP size distributions [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Bridging nutritional geometry and network ecology to quantify the robustness of nutritional networks
Published: 2026-07-01
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Nutrition, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Understanding the robustness and resilience of ecological networks is key to managing ecosystems and mitigating biodiversity loss. Simple models of network robustness simulate species losses across ecological networks but lack physiological realism, asserting that species persist if they interact with another organism. This neglects the nutritional consequences of resource loss and nutrition as a [...]
A mathematical foundation of modelling thermal injury and repair dynamics in ectotherms
Published: 2026-06-18
Subjects: Animal Experimentation and Research, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Physiology, Plant Sciences, Population Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Survival Analysis
As global temperatures rise and extreme heat events impair ectotherm performance and survival, it is becoming increasingly important to predict how organisms accumulate and repair thermal injury under realistic benign and stressful temperatures. The thermal death time (TDT) model quantifies how heat events translate into thermal injury, but under natural temperature fluctuations the TDT model is [...]
Modelling habitat selection using tracking data from central place foraging species: A practical guide for ecologists
Published: 2026-06-04
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Behavior and Ethology, Biostatistics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models
The study of habitat selection has long been at the heart of ecological research and is critical to deciphering the mechanisms that govern species’ responses to global change. This is particularly important for central place foraging species, whose ability to adapt to shifting environmental conditions and anthropogenic disturbance is limited by persistent attachment to a fixed site. Recent [...]
Evaluating the potential of molecular dietary analysis of predators for the detection of emerging plant pests
Published: 2026-06-01
Subjects: Agriculture, Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Biosecurity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Genetics, Laboratory and Basic Science Research Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Monitoring plant pests is crucial for maximising yields across agricultural and forest production systems, but also for the mitigation of invasive species spread. Traditional monitoring methods, such as mass trapping and direct observation, scale poorly and introduce latency between collection, detection and response. Since many plant pests are frequently consumed by predators, molecular dietary [...]
A Protocol for Standardizing Measurements and Enabling Global Harmonization of Herbarium Leaf Reflectance Spectra
Published: 2026-05-19
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Reflectance spectroscopy offers a powerful approach to integrate high- throughput phenotypic data from herbarium specimens into the digital landscapes of ecology, evolution, and systematics. Spectral digitization complements specimen metadata capture and photographic imaging by generating high-dimensional optical data from herbarium tissues that encode information about plant chemistry and [...]
Expanding the sentinel approach through multimodal integration: resolving underlying ecological processes with eDNA and computer vision
Published: 2026-05-19
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Sentinel approaches provide a semi-controlled method for quantifying in-field ecological interactions and processes while reducing bias and labour. They are, however, limited by difficulties ascribing taxonomic identities, behavioural context and temporal resolution to interacting agents. The integration of additional sources of data, including the analysis of DNA left behind on sentinel objects [...]
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, [...]