Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Forest Sciences
Assessing the sensitivity and robustness of the Living Planet Index through simulated population dynamics: strengths, stability, and challenges
Published: 2026-05-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Understanding population change through time is crucial for effective conservation of biodiversity. The Living Planet Index (LPI) is a key indicator for tracking global species abundance trends under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, offering a picture of population change over time. However, the sensitivity of the index to zero values or to the number of missing values in time [...]
A Functionally Integrated Symbiotic System as a Mechanism for Angiosperm Diversification
Published: 2026-05-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Plant Sciences, Systems Biology
Flowering plants have maintained exceptionally high diversity for over 100 million years, yet the mechanisms enabling sustained macroevolutionary diversification remain unresolved. Classical theory predicts a trade-off between speciation and extinction, but angiosperms have repeatedly diversified while persisting across heterogeneous environments. Mutualistic interactions, pollination, seed [...]
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, [...]
MASTHING: a process-based model of mast seeding in European beech
Published: 2026-04-22
Subjects: Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Physiology, Plant Sciences
Masting, the synchronised interannual variation in seed production, shapes forest regeneration and many ecosystem processes, yet process-based models remain underdeveloped. Here we introduce MASTHING (MASting THeory modellING), an individual-tree model coupling phenology, carbon gain, resource storage, temperature cues, and environmental vetoes on reproduction. We parameterised MASTHING for [...]
Northern Sierra Historical Range of Variability and Current Landscape Departure
Published: 2026-03-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
This report describes modeling historical range of variability (HRV) and current departure for landscapes within the Northern Sierra ecoregion in California and Nevada. We discuss the need for this study with respect to the historical and contemporary context of the ecoregion, including background on the natural range of variability concept and the use of simulation modeling to quantify it. For [...]
Drivers of roe deer use in fragmented forest landscapes; implications for current and future management in the context of policy driven forest expansion
Published: 2026-03-13
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Zoology
Forest expansion is a major current land use change across Europe. How this will affect the forest use of the most common European wild ungulate species, roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), and associated forest ecosystem services and disservices is poorly understood. Using a forest-agricultural mosaic landscape in northeast Scotland, we selected forests across a size and connectivity gradient as a [...]
Critical methodological flaws in Feurer et al. (2025) render its findings untrustworthy
Published: 2026-02-05
Subjects: Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences
A recent article by Feurer et al. (2025) aimed to synthesise literature on the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation globally. The stated aim of the review, to assess what are the proximate causes and underlying drivers of deforestation and forest degradation worldwide, is timely and relevant for ongoing policy efforts, for example zero-deforestation commitments and EU Deforestation [...]
Phylogenetic Perspectives on Heavy Metal Hyperaccumulation in Fungal Lineages
Published: 2026-01-19
Subjects: Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Microbiology, Other Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health
Across the fungal kingdom, the ability to hyperaccumulate and sequester toxic heavy metals from the environment appears to have evolved multiple times. Although in plants, animals, and bacteria the evolution of heavy metal hyperaccumulation is well studied, and despite potential applications of hyperaccumulation in mycoremediation, fungi are under-investigated. Here, we compile a novel dataset [...]
Strengthening Community Engagement as a Pathway to Effective Forest Fire Management and Resilient Forests in Nepal
Published: 2025-12-03
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Natural Resources Management and Policy
Forest ecosystems are indispensable for planetary health. They provide sustenance for around a quarter of global population. Forest fire is an important ecological disturbance; however, it can cause ecological and societal harm due to anthropogenic mismanagement and natural adversities leading to long-term socio-economic and environmental consequences. Extreme wildfire events have increased [...]
Quantifying impacts of policy and practice interventions on biodiversity and climate
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
There is urgent demand for ecosystem management interventions – targeted actions through policies and practices – that meaningfully address climate change and biodiversity loss while sustaining ecosystem delivery of water, food, fibre and fuel. Rigorous quantification of intervention outcomes is required for decision makers to identify, promote and scale effective interventions. Yet [...]
Navigating forest dieback and climate succession: Practical guidance for forest managers
Published: 2025-10-15
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Policy, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Plant Breeding and Genetics Life Sciences, Plant Pathology, Recreation, Parks and Tourism Administration
Australia’s forests and woodlands are entering a period of rapid ecological change, driven primarily by the impacts of climate change. The landscape is shifting from one of relative stability to one marked by uncertainty, novel threats, and complex interactions between climate, disturbance, and forest health. This means that forest managers must reconsider established approaches and assumptions [...]
What defines an urban butterfly? Life history traits and habitat associations of butterflies in urban environments
Published: 2025-09-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Urban areas are encroaching onto semi-natural areas the world over, driving species assemblages into homogenisation. A better understanding of the life history and habitat association traits can help support management efforts to improve urban biodiversity. Urban areas present an ecological filter, limiting the number of species present compared to the wider countryside. What characteristics help [...]
Forest Carbon Diligence: Digital MRV for Jurisdictional and Voluntary Offsets Markets
Published: 2025-08-10
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Forest Sciences, Technology and Innovation
Forest Carbon Diligence is a digital MRV system for mapping forest structure and forest carbon over time. This manuscript describes the qualities of the Diligence datasets — annual maps of canopy cover, canopy height, aboveground carbon density, change detection, and their uncertainties — and quantifies performance across multiple MRV contexts. Canopy height and canopy cover regression metrics [...]
Comparing statistical methods for detecting weather cues of mast seeding in European beech (Fagus sylvatica) across Europe
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Understanding the drivers of mast seeding is important for predicting reproductive dynamics in perennial plants. Here, we evaluate the performance of four statistical methods for identifying weather-associated drivers of annual seed production, i.e, weather cues: climate sensitivity profile, P-spline regression, sliding window analysis, and peak signal detection. Using long-term seed production [...]
Mapping the next forest generation reveals multiple regeneration gaps across German forests
Published: 2025-05-31
Subjects: Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Plant Sciences
In face of global change and increasing forest disturbances, forest regeneration is crucial for ensuring future generations of trees and resilient forest ecosystems. However, spatially explicit information on the current availability and climate suitability of seedlings and saplings remains scarce. We assessed the potential to predict species-specific forest regeneration densities at high [...]