Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Marine Biology
Spatial variation in keystone predation on foundation species drives local and landscape- scale diversity patterns
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Biodiversity, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The proposition that keystone predators increase biodiversity has been criticized for failing to consider the species facilitated by, rather than outcompeted by, dominant prey. Here, we revisit the relationship between the original keystone species, Pisaster ochraceus, and the diversity of rocky intertidal communities inclusive of competitively dominant prey, competitively subordinate [...]
Where are the hake going? How age, environmental signals, and shelf habitat shape Pacific Hake (Merluccius productus) summer distribution
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology
Sustainably managing a multinational fishery on a transboundary, relatively long-lived and migratory fish stock is challenging, especially in a changing ocean environment. In a warming world, Pacific hake (Merluccius productus, Merluccidae), jointly managed by the U.S. and Canada, have been hypothesized to move north. However, in recent years the proportion of Pacific hake in the northern part of [...]
Encounter behaviour shapes ecological distributions
Published: 2026-10-09
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecology’s foundational models keep only the first moment of the stochastic distributions of encounters. Yet, encounter behaviour (how animals search, aggregate, hide and move) sets the whole distributional shape: zeros, variance, skew and, where particular behaviours build them, heavy tails. That shape decides vital rates, persistence and spatial pattern, because the rates involved are [...]
The marine annelid trait manifesto: A call to rethink functional traits for ecological and conservation research
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Animal Experimentation and Research, Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
The Raunkiæran shortfall, defined as the scarcity of knowledge regarding species' attributes, represents one of the major obstacles to developing sound biodiversity conservation strategies and understanding ecological processes. In this context, despite the importance of marine annelids as dominant components of benthic ecosystems and key agents of marine ecosystem functioning, no comprehensive [...]
Subsistence fisheries in Small Island Developing States: the case study of the goby-fry fishery in Guinea Gulf
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Community-based Research, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
1. Artisanal and subsistence fisheries are crucial for the livelihood and food security of local communities of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), yet they remain largely excluded from formal catch statistics and management frameworks. Using Ostrom’s Social-Ecological Systems (SES) diagnostic framework, this study characterizes the previously unreported goby-fry (“peixinho”) fishery across 14 [...]
Beyond the prohibition list: redirecting negative subsidies into positive incentives could mitigate overfishing and protect coastal communities in WTO fisheries reform
Published: 2026-09-21
Subjects: Environmental Policy, Environmental Studies, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation
The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies is a landmark in multilateral environmental governance, yet its current phase of negotiations on addressing subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing is contentious due to perceived welfare risks for small-scale fishers. In framing the debate around prohibiting subsidies, negotiators have thus far given little [...]
Positive outcomes and insights for scaling from a randomized pilot of a gear exchange program to reduce bycatch in small-scale fisheries
Published: 2026-09-21
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Behavioral Economics, Environmental Studies, Marine Biology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Incentive-based conservation programs offer a promising approach for reducing fishing pressure on threatened species while supporting coastal livelihoods, yet causal evidence remains scarce. Modest budgets and small samples are a persistent challenge to evaluating pilots of novel conservation programs. We conducted a 12-month pre-registered randomized pilot of a gear exchange program in Aceh [...]
Calibrating exchange-level claims about sperm whale codas against surrogates: overlap, ornamentation and rubato under independent pre-registered control
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Marine Biology
Sharma et al. (Nat. Commun. 15:3617, 2024) report that sperm whale codas carry a combinatorial "phonetic alphabet" built from four dimensions, two of which — rubato (smooth modulation of coda duration across an exchange) and ornamentation (an extra click marking sequence edges) — are properties of coda sequences rather than of codas. Sequence-level claims presuppose a model of the exchange [...]
Scenario-dependent functional connectivity in a crowded seascape: habitat suitability, shipping pressure and marine infrastructure in the North Sea
Published: 2026-09-09
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Marine spatial planning increasingly needs seascape connectivity evidence to balance biodiversity conservation, offshore energy development and shipping. However, predicted functional connectivity depends strongly on how habitat suitability and human-use pressures are translated into resistance surfaces. This study tested how shipping and marine infrastructure alter HSM-derived connectivity [...]
Temperature extremes in the Gulf of Maine: A synthesis of marine heatwaves, cold-spells, and ecological impacts
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Long-term environmental change has been altering ecosystem function and phenology globally. Short-term temperature pulses, often called extreme temperature events, can accelerate impacts of long-term change on ecosystems by forcing rapid changes in food webs, triggering range shifts, and disrupting reproductive cycles. Marine ecosystems at the confluence of large global currents are particularly [...]
Drivers of Phytoplankton Community Dynamics across Tropical Coastal Habitats of Bangladesh
Published: 2026-08-26
Subjects: Marine Biology
Phytoplankton regulate aquatic food webs and biogeochemical cycling, yet cross-habitat comparisons from tropical coastal systems remain limited. This study examined phytoplankton community structure and its environmental drivers across three contrasting coastal habitats of Bangladesh: the Meghna River estuary, the Teknaf mangrove coast, and the coral reef waters surrounding Saint Martin's Island. [...]
Computational classification of SOD2 protein in coral and symbiotic algae from public genomic and transcriptomic data
Published: 2026-08-20
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
SOD2, or Manganese/Iron Superoxide Dismutase, plays a crucial role in maintaining cellular health across the tree of life. Existing literature is vague in identifying types of SOD2 proteins expressed in both corals and their symbiotic algae; most agree on the presence of a) mitochondrial targeting MnSOD in corals, and b) likely Mn dependent SOD2 in algae. This paper presents evidence for four [...]
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 [...]