Preprints
There are 3451 Preprints listed.
Continental breeding hotspots of migratory monarch butterflies revealed by coordinated community science partnership
Published: 2026-07-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology
The eastern migratory monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus plexippus) has declined by more than 80% over the past two decades, highlighting the need for improved understanding of its breeding ecology. To address longstanding gaps in continental-scale data on monarch reproduction, the International Monarch Monitoring Blitz has mobilized community scientists across North America to monitor monarch [...]
Quiet stewardship and deer return times: sound continuity, not fuel, predicts white-tailed deer avoidance of stewardship machines in a multi-year steward-conducted camera census
Published: 2026-07-18
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Recreation and routine land management can alter wildlife behavior even where they do not reduce abundance, and the acoustic component of human activity is difficult to isolate from human presence itself. Within a single restored prairie–savanna, the same trail network is worked on foot, on a silent electric utility vehicle (UTV), and behind gas engines (a gas ATV and a mower), with all vehicle [...]
Extant native and alien herbivores and carnivores retain substantial capacity to restore late-Quaternary trophic structure
Published: 2026-07-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
Global ecosystem restoration seeks to recover ecological functions and trophic integrity. However, late-Quaternary extinctions and range contractions of large mammals have simplified modern ecosystems. The extent to which trophic structure can be rebuilt by surviving species remains unclear. We assess the capacity of extant native and already-introduced alien large herbivores and carnivores to [...]
The Case for Prioritizing West Marin as a Beaver Relocation Site
Published: 2026-07-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Beaver Restoration Program (BRP) must allocate a limited number of translocations across many candidate watersheds. This paper argues that West Marin, the coastal watershed anchored by Lagunitas Creek, warrants placement in the top tier of the CDFW's prioritization model. West Marin is the rare site that is at once highest-value, lowest-risk, [...]
Individual repeatability in dietary specialisation across years and competitive regimes in wild birds
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Dietary variation reflects fitness trade-offs shaped by environmental conditions and individual traits. According to optimal foraging theory, individuals should specialise when profitable prey is abundant, yet empirical evidence remains limited. We hypothesised that specialisation is driven by individual personality and competition intensity. Following the pace-of-life syndrome (POLS) framework, [...]
Replication and generalization in evolutionary ecology
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Several authors have expressed concern about replicability in evolutionary ecology. But what does replicability mean in this field, and how can replication enable generalization? Evolutionary ecologists investigate probabilistic processes across a vast diversity of unique historical entities. I argue that the aims and subject matter of evolutionary ecology complicate inference and necessitate [...]
The highly pathogenic H5N1 outbreak did not increase mortality rates of adult Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula arctica) in Newfoundland, Canada
Published: 2026-07-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
Host nutrition and density jointly drive susceptibility and tolerance to parasite infection
Published: 2026-07-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Variation in host condition and population context is a major source of heterogeneity in infection risk and a key determinant of host-parasite dynamics. Host nutrition and density are drivers of this variation, yet their combined effects on host susceptibility and tolerance to parasite infection remain poorly understood. Here, we experimentally tested these interactive effects on susceptibility [...]
Integrity Matters: Riparian Forest Preservation Influences Body Condition and Parasites of Amphibians
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Riparian forests are essential for the structure and dynamics of head streams, performing an important role in maintaining biodiversity in fragmented forests. Integrity condition influences the stream quality and the distribution of amphibians and their responses to infections. To investigate this premise, we evaluated parasite infection parameters in amphibians through six riparian areas with [...]
Phantom decoys cause irrational choice in lizards
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Choice theory generally predicts that individuals act to maximize their benefits and behave according to simple rationality assumptions. However, the predictions of choice theory are often violated when an additional option is added to a choice set leading to a shift in choice between the original options. While this “decoy effect” has been documented across several animal taxa, it has not been [...]
Heart Rate and R–R Interval Recording in a Bottlenose Dolphin: Toward a Keeper-Led Framework for HRV-Based Welfare Assessment
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Monitoring physiological states in managed animals is important for health management and welfare assessment. Heart rate variability (HRV) may provide welfare-relevant information on autonomic regulation, but practical keeper-led approaches for obtaining cardiac data during routine husbandry remain limited in zoos and aquariums. To address this gap, we propose a keeper-led framework in which [...]
Is Biology Necessary to Advance Biology?
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Computational Biology, Philosophy, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Systems Biology
AI is transforming the workflow of biological science. But what role remains for human cognition when the priority is deep theory? We propose a division of labor based on a “coverage asymmetry” between artificial and biological agents. AI excels at extending the encounterable: scaling known mechanisms and exploring complex parameter regimes. However, AI cannot (yet) perform kind formation – the [...]
Charismatic microbes: adapting frameworks of non-human charisma to microorganisms
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Anthropology, Geography, Nature and Society Relations
1. Microbes are important to life on the planet, and therefore of high interest to conservation. Public microbial literacy however is restricted. Non-human charisma, the ways in which humans recognise and relate to non-humans, has been identified as an important influence on scientific research and conservation outcomes. As interest in microbes both in research and in science communication is [...]
Within- and across-genus scaling of vessel diameter reveals consistent hydraulic responses to rainfall
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
· Xylem vessel diameter and lumen fraction are expected to track water availability via the hydraulic safety–efficiency trade-off yet observed trait–rainfall relationships are weak and inconsistent. This discrepancy may partly reflect the conflation of within- and across-lineage effects in comparative datasets. · We tested this possibility by analysing hydraulically weighted vessel [...]
Why trait gradients across environments differ within species and across communities: Insights from a theoretical model
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Trait-environment relationships within plant species are both flatter on average and more variable than community-mean trends, yet the mechanisms driving this variation remain poorly understood. Classic theory attributes this flattening to maladaptive gene flow, but the theory has been underused and its scope, in particular how multiple factors interact to shape trait slopes, remains largely [...]