Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Marine Biology
Stage-dependent host use reveals reproductive and nursery habitats in the sea urchin-associated amphipod Dactylopleustes yoshimurai
Published: 2026-07-31
Subjects: Marine Biology
Host-associated symbionts are often described by a single host species, yet host use may be partitioned among life stages and host conditions. The sea urchin-associated amphipod Dactylopleustes yoshimurai commonly occurs on Strongylocentrotus intermedius in Otsuchi Bay, Japan, where juveniles frequently aggregate on disease lesions, whereas ovigerous females are rarely found. This pattern [...]
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 [...]
The first successful use of a robot seed planter in seagrass restoration
Published: 2026-07-29
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology
The global decline of seagrass meadows has intensified efforts to restore these foundational coastal ecosystems, yet restoration remains constrained by the inability to deliver seeds consistently, accurately, and efficiently over ecologically meaningful spatial scales. While underwater robotics have increasingly been proposed to overcome these operational bottlenecks, there is currently little [...]
A self tuning sliding window method for detecting phenotype linked regional poly-methylation architecture in sparse wildlife methylomes
Published: 2026-06-26
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Despite featuring extreme physiological adaptations integration of wildlife species into the modern ‘omics’ frameworks are limited due to the sparsity in the data. To address the sparsity limitation a self-tuning sliding-window framework was developed for the identification of the regional poly-CpG methylation architecture associated with phenotypic traits. Under the framework the iteratively [...]
The Fish Fauna of Tubbataha Reefs is highly Biodiverse and distinctively Oceanic
Published: 2026-06-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Zoology
We surveyed the fish fauna of Tubbataha Reefs, a remote and well-protected coral reef system in the Philippines. Tubbataha is located in the Coral Triangle, the region with the highest marine biodiversity in the world, and is a no-take marine protected area. We found a total of 534 species, with the Labridae (65 species), Pomacentridae (60 species), Gobiidae (60 species), Chaetodonidae (33 [...]
Body condition, but not reproductive success, is associated with sociality in a colonial seabird.
Published: 2026-06-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Ornithology, Zoology
Body condition, breeding habitat quality and access to socially acquired information are generally associated with higher fitness in social animals. In colonial species that breed in dense aggregations, such as seabirds, the combined effects of these factors on reproductive success have rarely been tested together. In this study, we investigated the relationship between fledging success, body [...]
Mind the Gap: A critical 40-fold workforce shortfall for protecting 30% of the ocean
Published: 2026-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Public Economics
Despite being tasked with protecting ocean biodiversity, the marine protected area (MPA) workforce remains poorly described. Using a global site-level questionnaire, we assessed staffing, workforce adequacy, technology use, and personnel requirements for effectively and equitably conserving 30% of the ocean by 2030 (30 x 30). Responses represented 52.8% of global MPA area across 63 countries and [...]
Historical and modern data sources reveal long-term declines in Caribbean coral reef water quality
Published: 2026-06-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology
Although it is suspected that the widespread death of Caribbean corals is associated with declining reef water quality from land-based pollution, this link has been difficult to quantify due to a dearth of reef water quality data. To assess the role of land-based pollution in recent coral declines, we synthesized paleoecological, historical, and modern data on reef water quality across the [...]
A data-driven assessment of the global community structure of pelagic zooplankton biomass
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Marine Biology, Statistical Models
Aim: Zooplankton often dominate pelagic metazoan biomass, making them a central component of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles. In this study, we aimed to: (1) provide biomass distributions of zooplankton functional types to support marine ecosystem monitoring and biogeochemical model evaluation; and (2) investigate regional and seasonal patterns of biomass across marine zooplankton [...]
Advancing public pro-environmental action for global seagrass conservation
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Environmental Education, Environmental Studies, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Psychology, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences
Seagrass meadows support biodiversity, climate mitigation, and human well-being, yet remain threatened by interacting anthropogenic pressures. Public engagement is increasingly promoted in seagrass conservation, but the behaviours most relevant to reducing seagrass decline remain poorly defined. We surveyed 172 seagrass knowledge holders from 39 countries and territories, representing 1942 [...]
Intertidal Exposure Modulates Time-Integrated Heat Tolerance of the Eastern Oyster Crassostrea virginica
Published: 2026-06-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The rise of unprecedented heatwaves globally has caused an increase in mass mortality events, motivating the need for accurate predictions of population declines. Predicting organismal function under fluctuating thermal regimes is a central challenge in thermal biology, particularly in intertidal systems where organisms experience rapid shifts between submerged and aerial exposure. Here, we [...]
Fishers’ local knowledge strengthens seagrass restoration planning
Published: 2026-05-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Seagrass restoration is increasingly guided by habitat suitability models, yet restoration outcomes depend on more than biophysical suitability alone. In coastal social-ecological systems, fishers and anglers hold fine-scale, time-integrated knowledge of habitat condition, human use, and local constraints that are rarely incorporated at the outset of restoration planning. Here, we tested whether [...]
The number and changing global distribution of seagrass-proximate people
Published: 2026-05-06
Subjects: Human Geography, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation
Seagrass meadows are increasingly recognised as critical natural capital, yet global seagrass conservation still lacks a basic human geography. Building on examples from forests, here, we provide the first global estimate of seagrass-proximate people, defined as people living within specified distances of known seagrass. We combined a global distribution layer of known, mapped and observed [...]
Parasite species identity reshapes geographic patterns of morphology in the hermit crab Pagurus filholi across Japan
Published: 2026-04-28
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Geographic variation in morphological traits of marine invertebrates is commonly attributed to local adaptation or phenotypic plasticity, yet such interpretations can be confounded when parasite assemblages — and their morphological effects on hosts — differ systematically among localities. Here, we tested whether the identity of five parasite species—rhizocephalans Peltogaster postica and [...]
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, [...]