Preprints
There are 3273 Preprints listed.
Biorestorer: A Framework for Synthetic Succession with a Qualitative System Level Illustration
Published: 2026-05-22
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Ecosystem restoration in severely degraded or soil-absent environments requires approaches that operate independently of natural soils and make effective use of locally available resources. The Biorestorer platform introduces synthetic succession as a systems-based eco-engineering framework structured in sequential functional phases and aligned with in situ resource utilization (ISRU) principles, [...]
A systematic review on the effectiveness of salmonid spawning habitat improvements, and recommendations to potentially increase productivity of depressed Newfoundland Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations
Published: 2026-05-22
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology
When dangerous predators are ignored: antipredator responses in temporary-pond amphibians
Published: 2026-05-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Antipredator behaviour is recognised as a key factor of reintroduction success, yet it remains poorly considered in conservation practice. Despite their conservation relevance, little is known about antipredator behaviour in Pelobatidae tadpoles, among which the endangered Italian lineage of common spadefoot toad Pelobates fuscus has been the target of several captive breeding and reintroduction [...]
Synthetic biology as an empirical tool for evolutionary theory
Published: 2026-05-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Evolutionary biology has traditionally inferred process from patterns in extant organisms and the fossil record, leaving many foundational questions constrained by their historical nature. Over the past two decades, synthetic and high-throughput approaches — including deep mutational scanning, genome editing, ancestral sequence reconstruction, engineered mutators, and random-sequence assays — [...]
Towards Nature Positive supply chains: From biodiversity impacts to organisational action
Published: 2026-05-21
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Policy, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Large organisations are critical to halting and reversing biodiversity loss, yet most of their impacts are hidden in complex supply chains. Robust strategies to fully identify, quantify, trace, and begin to mitigate these impacts remain rare. Here we present a generalisable workflow for assessing and addressing supply chain impacts on biodiversity and then apply it to the University of Oxford’s [...]
Threatscapes for the aeroconservation of birds
Published: 2026-05-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Zoology
The airspace is increasingly cluttered with threats to aerial organisms in the form of anthropogenic structures and vehicles, likely contributing to bird population declines through additive mortality mediated by collisions. In the United States alone, up to and likely exceeding one billion birds die annually due to collisions aloft, and most of these fatalities are related to six threat types: [...]
A fine-grained behavior-based approach to estimating the probability of collision between moving vehicles and birds
Published: 2026-05-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Collisions between animals and vehicles contribute to biodiversity loss, threaten human safety, and have economic consequences. Escape responses of wildlife to vehicles are a critical factor in determining whether a collision occurs. However, presently species-specific vulnerability estimates do not consider the species escape behavior, potentially resulting in inaccurate mortality estimates. [...]
A Critical Year for Nature: Now is the time to accelerate action on the Global Biodiversity Framework
Published: 2026-05-20
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biodiversity, Environmental Policy, Environmental Studies
In October 2026, Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will convene to review progress against the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) adopted in 2022. A global report will provide a summary of collective progress, primarily drawing from government self-reporting at the halfway mark to 2030, the target year for halting and reversing nature loss. [...]
Collembola eco-morphological indices (EMI) and Soil Biological Quality Index (QBS-c): a review and practical guidelines for soil health assessment
Published: 2026-05-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Soil health assessments remain dominated by physicochemical indicators, largely due to limited functional understanding and a lack of practical tools for quantifying soil biodiversity in applied contexts. However, many soil functions are fundamentally driven by biotic components, highlighting the need for robust biological indicators. The Soil Biological Quality indices, QBS-ar and QBS-c (Parisi, [...]
The holobiont is not a useful model for most host-microbiome interactions
Published: 2026-05-20
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences
The holobiont concept refers to a host and associated microbes. It has been critiqued over the last decade, primarily based on the argument that individual holobionts are not an appropriate level for analyzing multi-generation host dynamics, as most microbes are acquired from the environment. Several responses were given to this and other criticisms. The main response has been that the holobiont [...]
Fishers’ local knowledge strengthens seagrass restoration planning
Published: 2026-05-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Seagrass restoration is increasingly guided by habitat suitability models, yet restoration outcomes depend on more than biophysical suitability alone. In coastal social-ecological systems, fishers and anglers hold fine-scale, time-integrated knowledge of habitat condition, human use, and local constraints that are rarely incorporated at the outset of restoration planning. Here, we tested whether [...]
Insufficient environmental protection by the European regulatory framework for pesticides
Published: 2026-05-20
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Health Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Toxicology
Schriever et al. (2025) argue that environmental risk assessment of pesticides in the European Union is sufficiently protective and that regulatory thresholds are rarely exceeded. Here, we re-examine these claims based on new and previous evidence from monitoring, systematic reviews, and different types of field studies. The clear outcome is that measured pesticide concentrations frequently [...]
Multi-eared Listening: Pathways to Equitable Partnerships in a Transdisciplinary Ecoacoustics
Published: 2026-05-20
Subjects: Arts and Humanities, Life Sciences
Multi-Eared Listening is a call to integrate Indigenous, local, and Western scientific knowledges in a transdisciplinary ecoacoustic research. Following the Mi’kmaw principle of Two-Eyed Seeing, Multi-Eared Listening, points to the importance of braiding epistemologies in ecoacoustic research and conservation. Case studies from Ecuador, Ghana, Indonesia, Australia, and transnational sound art [...]
A financial framework for nature must that recognise that ecosystems have local temporal and spatial dynamics
Published: 2026-05-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Business
Decades of research and politics have led to a coherent set of biodiversity metrics and strong evidence that biodiversity supports human well-being. So why do we not have a financial system that encourages conservation and restoration of nature? We argue that a central reason is that the financing used has not been aligned with the spatial and temporal structure of biodiversity. Ecosystems are [...]
Colossal Disinformation
Published: 2026-05-19
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
I have a position: de-extinction is almost impossible, however, deëxtinction, a word invented by the world’s first “de-extinction” company Colossal Laboratories & Bioscience’s can be (Max 2025); hereafter Colossal, which they define as the creation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that appear and act like extinct species, is possible. It’s branding, not science. I and other critics of [...]