Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Marine Biology
Multi-scale collapse of coral cover under climate change
Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Applied Statistics, Biodiversity, Biology, Dynamic Systems, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Marine Biology, Mathematics, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Survival Analysis, Systems Biology
Projecting ecosystem trajectories under future climates is critical for conservation planning, yet remains constrained by uncertainty arising from limited data, ecological complexity, and biological and environmental variability. Variability, when disentangled from uncertainty, offers critical insights into population and community dynamics. For example, enhanced vital rates (growth, survival, [...]
Network architecture and vulnerability of macroalgal epiphyte-host interactions in Caribbean coastal ecosystems: implications for marine conservation
Published: 2026-04-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Background and Aims Tropical coastal marine ecosystems depend critically on macroalgal epiphyte–host interaction networks to sustain biodiversity, primary production, and ecosystem services, yet the architecture and vulnerability of these networks remain poorly characterised in the Caribbean. This study aimed to characterise the topological structure of the epiphyte–host interaction network in [...]
Fish in sand and gravel habitats in the North Sea and adjacent shelf seas: A systematic literature review
Published: 2026-04-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Sedimentary habitats such as sand and gravel are among the most widespread seafloor environments in shelf ecosystems, yet fish–habitat relationships in these substrates remain poorly understood. Although these habitats support diverse and productive benthic communities, ecological information on how fish use them is fragmented, limiting the effectiveness of conservation frameworks such as EUNIS, [...]
Incorporating population genomic perspectives into kelp conservation and aquaculture in the Pacific Northwest
Published: 2026-04-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Recent kelp forest declines and growth in the kelp aquaculture industry have fueled increasing interest in ecological and evolutionary research on kelp forests, including kelp population genomics. While many kelp management activities have inherent genetic and evolutionary implications, kelp management in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) of North America has to date made only limited use of [...]
Will Climate Change Affect the Sustainability of Krill Fishing? A Simulation Study.
Published: 2026-03-31
Subjects: Marine Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
In the Southern Ocean, Antarctic krill form the base of the food web, and are the primary food source for a wide range of species, including whales, penguins and fish. Krill also comprises the largest fishery resource in Antarctica, but are increasingly thought to be impacted by changing environmental conditions associated with climate change. In order to explore potential synergistic impacts of [...]
Seasonal dynamics of sex ratio, reproduction, and parasite-specific feminization in the hermit crab Pagurus filholi at a fixed coastal site in Chiba, Japan
Published: 2026-03-16
Subjects: Marine Biology
Reproductive output in intertidal crustaceans is reshaped by seasonal changes in host demography and its interaction with parasitic castration, yet parasite–species–resolved time series remain scarce for hermit crabs. We conducted year‐round monitoring of the hermit crab Pagurus filholi at a fixed intertidal site in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, with monthly sampling from January to December 2025. [...]
Disease-associated aggregation of Dactylopleustes yoshimurai on sea urchins: host-level and lesion-level processes
Published: 2026-03-05
Subjects: Marine Biology
Amphipods of the genus Dactylopleustes are specialized symbionts of sea urchins, and in some species aggregations on host lesions have been reported; however, the behavioural mechanisms underlying such lesion-associated aggregation remain poorly understood. We investigated host-level and within-host processes underlying lesion aggregation in the symbiotic amphipod Dactylopleustes yoshimurai on [...]
Machine-learning models of coral cover and life histories reveal that climate refugia for coral reefs persist into 2050
Published: 2026-02-24
Subjects: Marine Biology
Climate change is accelerating the decline of coral reefs, yet some locations may retain conditions that support persistence under future warming. We compiled 45,091 coral field observations (1960–2025) and 42 climate, biophysical, and human-pressure predictors to train machine-learning ensembles that estimate coral cover in 2020 and 2050, and life-history composition in 2020, across a global [...]
Anergiobiosis: a testable framework for microbial life under extreme power limitation
Published: 2026-02-21
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology
"Aeonophily" was recently suggested as a new category of extremophily for ultra-slow-growing subsurface microorganisms. This terminology conflates a physiological state with potential extremophilic specialization. We propose "anergiobiosis" to describe life without sufficient power to sustain cell division, separating this state from questions about specialization. Analogous to temperature [...]
Predicting demographic impacts from sublethal cumulative effects of offshore renewable developments on breeding seabirds
Published: 2026-02-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology, Population Biology
1. Offshore renewable developments (ORDs) are often located in habitat used by protected seabird species and may cause sublethal effects by altering movement patterns and displacing individuals from key resources. Predicting how these effects translate into population-level impacts is challenging for long-lived species because demographic consequences emerge from complex, state-dependent [...]
Eelgrass-associated fishes show large interspecific differences in thermal acclimation to marine heatwaves
Published: 2026-02-05
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Global warming is increasingly exposing shallow coastal habitats to thermal extremes, with important consequences for the fish species they support. Eelgrass (Zostera marina), the most widespread seagrass in the Northern Hemisphere, provides nursery habitats and foraging opportunities for a high diversity of temperate fishes. However, light limitation is compressing eelgrass depth distribution to [...]
Population dynamics and disease-linked host use of the sea urchin symbiont Dactylopleustes yoshimurai (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Pleustidae) on Strongylocentrotus intermedius
Published: 2026-01-29
Subjects: Marine Biology, Population Biology
Dactylopleustes yoshimurai is an echinoid-associated amphipod that frequently aggregates on disease lesions of the short-spined urchin Strongylocentrotus intermedius in Otsuchi Bay, northeastern Japan. However, its life history and use of diseased hosts remain poorly understood. We combined four years of monthly SCUBA surveys (Jan 2020–Jan 2024) with quantitative sampling of diseased and healthy [...]
Different migration patterns of European anchovy and sardine around Iberian Peninsula revealed by eye lens isotopes
Published: 2026-01-20
Subjects: Marine Biology
Small pelagic fish are key components of productive coastal ecosystems, yet their migration ecology remains poorly understood, causing challenges for management. We applied stable carbon and nitrogen isotope (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) analyses of eye lenses to investigate movements of European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) and sardine (Sardina pilchardus) around the Iberian Peninsula. Muscle isotopes [...]
Morphological feminization in hermit crabs (family Paguridae) induced by parasitic peltogastrid barnacles (Crustacea: Cirripedia: Rhizocephala)
Published: 2026-01-20
Subjects: Marine Biology
Rhizocephalan barnacles are highly specialized parasitic crustaceans that profoundly alter the morphology, physiology, and reproduction of their decapod hosts. In hermit crabs (Paguridae), parasitism by peltogastrid rhizocephalans has been reported to induce feminization of male secondary sexual traits, such as the development of female-specific pleopods and the reduction of cheliped size; [...]
Temperature carryover effect revealed for marine fishes using spatio-temporal distributed lag models
Published: 2026-01-14
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 [...]