Preprints
There are 3176 Preprints listed.
What do ecology and evolutionary biology journal websites communicate about their policies and preferences regarding replication studies?
Published: 2026-04-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The replication of prior research is a cornerstone of the scientific process and valued as such in ecology and evolutionary biology. However, it appears replication studies are nowhere near as prevalent in the published literature as might be expected if they were a routine part of building confidence in research findings. This may be due in part to the widespread perception of replication [...]
The human handprint in shaping plant diversity in urban environments
Published: 2026-04-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
Urban plant assemblages comprise mixtures of native and non-native species distributed across a variety of urban green space (UGS) types, yet we lack an integrated understanding of how plant diversity and composition varies across UGS that differ in the degree to which communities arise through self-assembly versus human facilitation. Here, we address the gap based on a comprehensive dataset of [...]
Dwarf males function as males but retain female-biased transcriptional profiles in an androdioecious barnacle
Published: 2026-04-24
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences
Sexual systems exhibit remarkable diversity, yet how alternative reproductive strategies are implemented at the level of gene expression remains poorly understood. In androdioecious species, males coexist with hermaphrodites and function exclusively as sperm donors, raising the question of whether the males’ transcriptional profiles are fully masculinized or retain features of hermaphroditic [...]
Molecular War and Peace: the Concurrent Path to Antibiosis and Antibiotic Resistance
Published: 2026-04-23
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences
The possibility of the emergence of proto-antibiotic and proto-resistance molecules in the prebiotic world, as primary elements involved in “molecular wars,” is examined in this conceptual review. Throughout the Earth's early history, prebiotic chemical processes produced molecules that associated both randomly and persistently. Over time, those configurations that achieved greater stability were [...]
Novel citation-based indices exacerbate privilege gaps in academic publishing
Published: 2026-04-22
Subjects: Scholarly Publishing
An undeniable fact of modern academia is that it is metric-driven, a landscape in which researchers are narrowly defined by their publication output and citations. The demand for simple methods for defining our output has led to many popular citation-based metrics, used as shorthand for academic output both at higher levels of funding and day-to-day assessments. Despite the flaws being [...]
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 [...]
Beyond where species go: integrating SDMs, functional traits, and the Tree of Life to anticipate climate‑driven change in ecosystem functioning
Published: 2026-04-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Forecasting biodiversity under climate-change scenarios typically involves applying species distribution models (SDMs) to project shifts in the areas where abiotic conditions are suitable for a given species under future climates, often interpreted as gains or losses in species ranges. Although the impacts of species loss are often quantified using measures of functional or evolutionary [...]
Methodological challenges in avian nestbox temperature manipulation experiments: a review with recommendations
Published: 2026-04-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Experimental manipulation of nest temperature - particularly in nest boxes, given ease of access and control - has become increasingly used for understanding the ecological impacts of climate change on wild birds. While field experiments are crucial for establishing causal links between temperature variation and biological responses, they present numerous logistical challenges. Moreover, [...]
The promise and challenge of environmental epigenomics in a rapidly changing world
Published: 2026-04-22
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Environmental Studies, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
There has been a fast-paced research effort on the role of epigenetic mechanisms in facilitating organisms’ capacity to cope with rapid environmental change, highlighted by several recent reviews and special issues on this topic. What is important, along with this momentum, is to pause and reflect on both the promises and challenges of linking detailed molecular mechanisms to broad patterns of [...]
Reliable inference: benefits of open raw data may be universal in meta-analysis
Published: 2026-04-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
While the benefits of open data are often discussed, they are rarely quantified. Here, we provide the first evidence of the potential gains from using raw data for evidence synthesis and introduce a tool that helps researchers determine when this approach is most beneficial. Classical meta-analysis (CMA) relies on published results, making it vulnerable to publication bias and p-hacking. We [...]
TOCing with birds: Touchscreen-equipped operant chambers as flexible tools for avian behavioral experiments
Published: 2026-04-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Understanding how animals respond to visual stimuli is a key goal of behavioral and evolutionary ecology. Experiments documenting the behavioral responses of receivers to different stimuli are an essential explanatory tool, yet presenting stimuli that engage in complex but controlled animal behaviors – such as naturalistic movement – to biologically relevant receivers remains a significant [...]
Plastic shifts in thermal preference and thermoregulation strategy across ontogeny in an invasive fly
Published: 2026-04-21
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Behavioural thermoregulation allows ectotherms to escape extreme or seek optimal temperatures. Its precision can impact survival and fitness under changing conditions and its plasticity can be an adaptive strategy when the plasticity of thermal limits is insufficient to buffer against warming. We explore the developmental and intergenerational plasticity of behavioural thermoregulation strategies [...]
Rethinking terrestrial wildlife telemetry through instrumentation without capture and handling
Published: 2026-04-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
Telemetry using animal‑borne biologgers is central to wildlife research. Capturing and instrumenting wild animals, however, remains the most invasive, logistically challenging, and costly component of telemetry studies. This has contributed to current practice, which favors long tracking durations on few individuals, prioritizing longevity over temporal detail. While this model has yielded [...]
Autonomous biodiversity credits on the horizon?
Published: 2026-04-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Biodiversity credits are being pushed as a means to fund nature conservation. Much of the debate around credits has concerned additionality, leakage, and permanence, and the extent to which biodiversity can be captured in an individual unit. As AI models continue to develop, however, technology could create a new kind of loss-of-control problem for biodiversity credits. In this Perspective, we [...]
Sociality beyond helpers at the nest: the number of strong associations predict reproductive trade-offs in a cooperative breeder
Published: 2026-04-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
Individual social relationships can shape fitness across taxa, but in studies on cooperatively breeding species, the social environment relevant to reproduction is typically reduced to the number of helpers. We tested whether breeder sociality beyond helper number predicts reproductive performance in a colonial cooperative bird, the sociable weaver (Philetairus socius). Using long-term data and [...]