Preprints
There are 2743 Preprints listed.
Forecasting Ecological and Economic Impacts of Red Tides in the Southwest Florida Coast
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring
Red tides, a form of Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB), pose a severe threat to Florida’s wildlife, fisheries, and coastal communities. These blooms release harmful brevetoxins, which kill marine life and devastate fisheries, diminishing both yields and revenue. Consequently, coastal residents that rely on fishing and tourism are also detrimentally affected by red tides. With rising global temperatures, [...]
New distributional records of two butterflies from Bangladesh: Insights into potential climate-driven range shifts
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Entomology
During field surveys on butterfly taxa at Madhobkunda Eco Park, located in the northeastern region of Bangladesh, two species from the Hesperiidae family were recorded for the first time in the country. Particularly, a skipper butterfly, Pithauria marsena, Hewitson,1866 (Banded Straw Ace), was observed in December 2023, and a flat butterfly, Celaenorrhinus nigricans, de Nicéville,1885 [...]
IQ-NET: A Deep Learning Approach for Fast and Accurate Phylogenetic Inference from Real Alignments
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Phylogenetic inference is fundamental to modern biology, with applications spanning evolutionary biology, epidemiology, and comparative genomics. While maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods remain the gold standard due to their statistical rigor, they rely on simplifying evolutionary assumptions and are computationally intensive. Existing machine learning approaches offer speed advantages, but [...]
Identification of the Cichlid Fishes of Lake Malawi/Nyasa Part 1: Cyrtocarina (the ‘benthic’ or ‘hap’ sub-radiation).
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
With an estimated 800-1000 species, the cichlid fishes of Lake Malawi represent the largest known adaptive radiation of vertebrates from a single common ancestor in a limited geographical area, in this case a single lake. They provide an outstanding opportunity to study the rapid diversification of form and function on a limited genetic background and to attempt understand why lineages vary so [...]
Specialization of bat-fly interactions at different elevations in a montane forest of Northern Peru
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
Hippoboscoidea flies exhibit highly specific ectoparasitic relationships with bats, shaped by both intrinsic factors (e.g., bat behavior) and extrinsic factors (e.g., land use). Understanding the dynamics of these parasite–host interactions is essential for uncovering co-evolutionary patterns and informing conservation strategies. To this end, we studied bat–fly interactions across different [...]
Invasive fishes interact with temperature to reshape community size structure across climatic zones
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
The body size spectrum (or individual size distribution) is a simple yet widely recognized approach that links individual and population traits to community structure and ecosystem functions, making it a valuable indicator of anthropogenic effects. However, the assessment of size spectra in the context of biological invasions remains poorly explored. We investigated the impacts of non-native (NN) [...]
Predicting Indoor Air Pollution Reduction Behavior Among Urban Residents of Bangladesh Using an Extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) Model
Published: 2025-11-24
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Indoor air pollution (IAP), with elevated levels of fine particulate matter, significantly impacts public health in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) such as Bangladesh where reliance on biomass fuels and inadequate ventilation leads to high pollutant concentrations exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. While technological interventions have been explored, behavioral [...]
Resurrection of Anopheles darlingi FREP1 Ancestor Reveals Adaptive Evolution Characterized by Changes in Protein Stability and Plasmodium falciparum Interaction
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Fibrinogen-related protein 1 (FREP1), a midgut-localized fibrinogen-like lectin in Anopheles mosquitoes, mediates Plasmodium ookinete attachment by binding α-tubulin-1. To elucidate the evolutionary forces shaping this interaction, the study analysed FREP1 sequences from 29 Anopheles species using codon-based tests, ancestral sequence reconstruction, stability modelling, and docking. Both aBSREL [...]
RNA Virus Discovery from Daphnia meta-transcriptomes: A novel Tombunoda-like virus based on RNA dependent RNA polymerase identification
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Life Sciences, Virology
The discovery of RNA viruses from meta-transcriptomes has led to an explosion in viral diversity and identified many novel host-virus associations. To date, no studies have examined the RNA virome of the model zooplankter Daphnia. From which only four viruses are known, with only one being well understood. Here, I assemble and annotate RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) containing contigs from [...]
Changes in the fire resilience of Mediterranean trees in response to climate variability over the past 300 Years
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
With global warming, understanding the tree resilience to fire is still a scalding topic in ecology. Tree resilience would depend on fire intervals, and on interactions with atmospheric conditions, including temperature, precipitation, drought, and CO₂. These interactions would be exacerbated in Mediterranean ecosystems. We test this hypothesis by analysing variations in tree-ring widths [...]
The resurgence of Evening Grosbeak Coccothraustes vespertinus: A 2024-2025 winter revival in Boileau, Québec: A Research Study
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
The Evening Grosbeak is widely distributed across Canada’s forests but has exhibited significant long-term declines (77-90%) over most of its range since 1970. Project FeederWatch data gathered between 1988 and 2006 indicated a significant survey wide decline in the mean flock size, 27% in 18 years. The number of sites reporting any sighting plunged 50%. Breeding bird survey (BBS) data indicate [...]
Reconciling top-down conservation priorities with bottom-up local needs
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Community-based Research, Environmental Policy, Life Sciences, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation
The success of global conservation goals risks being undermined by conflicts that arise when high-level, data-driven priorities clash with local needs and contexts. While top-down systematic planning efficiently identifies priority areas using large-scale, multi-dimensional data, it neglects the input of local communities and stakeholders. Here, we propose a novel priority-setting process that [...]
What evidence exists on the effectiveness of nature-inclusive designs for marine biodiversity in offshore wind farms? A Systematic map protocol
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
The global expansion of offshore wind energy is essential for meeting climate targets, yet its ecological impacts on marine biodiversity remain a major concern. In line with the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which calls upon all economic sectors to reduce negative impacts and enhance positive contributions, Nature-inclusive Designs (NiDs) have been proposed to reduce the [...]
Oxidative stress after pollutant exposure depends strongly on experimental design and pollutant properties: a meta-analysis
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
Measurements of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are often performed to assess a species’ general sublethal stress response to a pollutant. However, ROS bioassays often produce seemingly ambiguous results, and the drivers that lead to these differences are largely unknown. To approach this gap, we conducted a meta-analysis on ROS generation, ROS-associated damage products, enzyme activities, and [...]
Functional stability of coastal plankton communities toward extreme weather-related stressors
Published: 2025-11-19
Subjects: Life Sciences
Extreme weather events, such as marine heatwaves and terrestrial runoff, are intensifying in many areas and pose growing threats. In the present study, we assessed the functional stability of plankton communities in response to these events by comparing their responses to marine heatwave and terrestrial runoff stressors. Using two in situ mesocosm experiments conducted at the same coastal site, [...]