Preprints
There are 3338 Preprints listed.
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 [...]
Hunting in a tough neighborhood: juvenile octopus interactions with territorial and follower fish
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Octopuses are keystone species in shallow-water marine ecosystems. Although researchers mostly focus on predator-prey interactions, many non-lethal yet non-neutral interactions occur, particularly among fish. These range from possible cooperation through kleptoparasitism and scavenging to occasional octopus predation on an unwary fish. We evaluated some of these interactions using video [...]
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 [...]
EntoScan and BEEomass: a standardized imaging system and a physically motivated model for high-throughput dry biomass estimation of arthropods
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Computational Biology, Computational Engineering, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Engineering, Entomology
Computer vision and AI are now widely used for automated insect classification, but their potential for estimating other traits, such as biomass, is not yet fully explored. Insect biomass is a key measure of ecosystem function, informing ecosystem services, food webs, and environmental change. It is also used to track population trends and estimate the contribution of insects to ecosystem carbon. [...]
Tree species richness effects on pre-dispersal seed predation are mediated by tree fruit type
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Forest BEF experiments are only now reaching a stage at which natural tree regeneration can be studied, offering new opportunities to understand how biodiversity shapes trophic interactions during early demographic filtering. Here, we quantified seed productivity and insect-mediated pre-dispersal seed predation on 12 tree species across a tree species richness gradient from 1 to 16 in the [...]
An integrated framework for unifying our understanding of nonconsumptive predation risk effects
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Predation risk can induce risk-induced trait responses (RITRs) – changes in prey defensive traits including behavior, morphology, life history, and physiology – thought to have profound effects on prey fitness and population dynamics (termed ‘nonconsumptive effects’). Yet, predicting the magnitude of RITRs and their fitness consequences remains difficult because outcomes depend heavily on [...]
Evolutionary and operational trade-offs in assisted gene flow for climate-adaptive forestry
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Assisted gene flow (AGF) is an adaptive forest management strategy to increase forests' resilience to climate change, yet little is known about how management decisions interact with the strength of natural selection and introgression dynamics that co-determine relative stand productivity. We used individual-based, spatially explicit simulations to investigate how spatial configuration (ranging [...]
The crabeater seal reference genome reveals hallmarks of persistently large effective population size and sustained population expansion in the World’s most abundant pinniped
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
Population genetic theory predicts that a species’ demographic history shapes patterns of genome-wide variation. However, conservation genomic studies have disproportionately focused on small or declining species, where low genetic diversity and inbreeding are major concerns, while highly abundant species have attracted comparatively less attention. Here, we investigate the crabeater seal [...]
Nest architecture as overlooked material culture: the case for systematic study of construction behaviour across nest-building primates
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Animal Studies, Anthropology, Biological Psychology, Biology, Comparative Psychology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Frans de Waal's work highlighted an uncomfortable question: not whether animals have complex cognitive lives, but why we are so reluctant to recognise them. Nest building in great apes is perhaps the most striking example of this problem. Every great ape builds a nest, every day, for the entirety of its adult life. The behaviour has been documented ecologically for decades. Yet the internal [...]
From Detections to Demography: Methodological Challenges and Opportunities in Survival Estimation from Automated Telemetry Networks
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Survival is a fundamental demographic process influencing individual fitness and population dynamics. Automated telemetry systems offer unprecedented opportunities to estimate survival of highly mobile organisms across broad spatial and temporal scales. However, the structure of these tracking networks creates systematic biases that render standard survival models inadequate. Receiver stations [...]
Emergent competition resolves the paradox of stable microbial mutualisms
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
What is the role of cooperation in determining ecosystem structure? This question is central to ecology, yet remains controversial; cooperative mechanisms such as plant-insect pollination and microbe-microbe cross-feeding are widespread, but ecological theory suggests that cooperative communities should be unstable. Here, we resolve this apparent contradiction by deriving a precise and general [...]
Predator Experience Shapes Behaviour: Comparing Stone Wētā (Hemideina maori) Populations With and Without Weka (Gallirallus australis hectori)
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Antipredator behaviour reflects both evolutionary history and individual experience, yet how populations respond to changes in predator exposure remains poorly understood, particularly for large invertebrates. We examined antipredator behaviour in two populations of stone wētā (Hemideina maori Pictet & Saussure, 1891) inhabiting weka-free Mou Tapu and nearby Mou Waho, where weka (Gallirallus [...]
Mapping Mechanistic Modeling of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Across Migratory Flyways: A Systematic Review
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Diseases, Epidemiology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Virus Diseases
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses, particularly H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, continue to spread globally via wild migratory birds along defined flyway corridors. Mechanistic models are essential tools for understanding HPAI transmission dynamics in flyway systems. Yet the geographic distribution of such modeling efforts across migratory flyways remains unknown. To inform the global [...]
Mapping microclimate temperatures in open ecosystems using UAVs: a comparison between thermal, correlative, and mechanistic approaches
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Climate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring
Open terrestrial ecosystems exhibit pronounced fine scale thermal heterogeneity, yet spatially continuous microclimate data at biologically relevant heights and scales remain scarce. Here, we evaluate three unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV) informed approaches for mapping microclimate temperatures, including land surface temperature (LST) and near surface air temperature (T13cm), in an open [...]
MSCquartets 3.3: Fast Inference of Species Networks and Trees of Blobs under the Multispecies Coalescent
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Bioinformatics
The R package MSCquartets offers a suite of methods for testing and inferring species relationships from gene trees under coalescent models. MSCquartets 3.3 significantly extends the functionality of version 1.0 by implementing the TINNiK and ECToBlob algorithms for inference of the tree of blobs under the network multispecies coalescent model (NMSC). Additionally, it implements the NANUQ+ [...]