Preprints
There are 3889 Preprints listed.
GPS telemetry reveals changes in the movement patterns of a cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus) flying over an active war zone
Published: 2026-10-30
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences
Armed conflicts have devastating effects over wildlife populations and ecosystems, yet their impacts on wildlife behavior remains understudied. In this study we summarized behavioral changes that occurred in a Cinereous Vulture (Aegypius monachus) which made three flights over active war zones in Northern and Eastern Ukraine during spring 2022. As the individual approached the frontline its [...]
Spontaneous native–non-native tree mixtures worldwide: a systematic map of research patterns, with knowledge gaps and management implications
Published: 2026-10-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences
Purpose of Review: Spontaneous mixtures of native and non-native tree species occur in forest landscapes affected by land-use change, species introductions and disturbances. However, research on these communities remains fragmented. Recent Findings: We identified 238 cases. Research was concentrated in high-income countries and studies included diverse combinations of native and non-native tree [...]
Genomic costs without functional consequences in short-range endemics trapped in evolutionary refugia
Published: 2026-10-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Evolution, Genomics, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics
Species with small geographic ranges are often concentrated in evolutionary refugia, landscapes that support viable populations through significant climate oscillations. Under long-term stable environments and with small population size, species are predicted to evolve narrow climatic tolerances, lose genetic diversity and accumulate harmful mutations. Together, these predictions suggest that [...]
One Paleopathology: A Deep-Time Framework for Predicting Malaria Resurgence in the Climate Crisis
Published: 2026-10-30
Subjects: Archaeological Anthropology, Arts and Humanities, Biological and Physical Anthropology, Climate, Diseases, Environmental Public Health, Epidemiology, History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Parasitic Diseases, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Malaria, the deadliest vector-borne disease in human history, is resurging under climate change, land-use change, shifting public health priorities, and declining global funding. In this Personal View, we argue that One Paleopathology, an interdisciplinary framework that integrates bioarchaeology, paleogenomics, historical (written) sources, paleoclimatology, and disease ecology, offers critical [...]
Mapping actor diversity is essential for advancing global seagrass conservation
Published: 2026-10-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Human Geography, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy
Seagrass conservation is increasingly organised around global agendas for protection, restoration, climate mitigation, biodiversity recovery and nature-positive finance. The actor systems that determine whether these agendas succeed remain poorly described, if at all. We developed a heuristic actor-centred framework for seagrass social-ecological systems, combining a literature scan with [...]
Will AI inadvertently push a natural history renaissance?
Published: 2026-10-30
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
As AI automates coding and statistical modelling, quantitative ecologists face an existential crisis. But automated analysis is only as good as the data it is fed, shifting the scarce resource from analysis to expert observation. Naturalists and field ecologists, increasingly ‘endangered’ species in the modern era, may experience a resurgence, if institutions act.
Achieving social and environmental justice: a call to integrate the human and the more-than-human in spatial decision making
Published: 2026-10-30
Subjects: Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Urban Studies and Planning
Discrepancies between climate velocity and dispersal capacity threaten subalpine forests in Northern Italy
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Plant Sciences
The acceleration of anthropogenic warming is fundamentally altering the climatic space available to foundational conifer species in European alpine environments. This study evaluates the potential impacts of future climate scenarios on the spatial distribution and elevational displacement of four key taxa (Abies alba, Larix decidua, Picea abies, and Pinus sylvestris) in the Italian Alps. We [...]
Modeling Mosquito Dynamics and West Nile Virus Risk in Canada: A Systematic Mapping Review of Approaches and Research Gaps
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Mosquito population dynamics are strongly shaped by environmental conditions and are central to mosquito-borne disease risk. In Canada, West Nile virus (WNV) remains the dominant mosquito-borne viral disease of public health concern, while climate change may alter mosquito distributions, seasonal activity, and the risk of WNV and other emerging mosquito-borne diseases. This systematic mapping [...]
How Much of the Forest Do Citizen Scientists Actually Record? A Decade of iNaturalist Sampling in the Hyrcanian Forests
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Forest Sciences
Citizen-science records increasingly inform biodiversity research and conservation planning, yet how much of a large forest they actually cover is rarely measured. We analyzed 1,700 research-grade iNaturalist records from the Hyrcanian Forest, northern Iran (2015–2025), on a 10 × 10 km grid, comparing observed coverage with null models. Annual records rose from 48 to 386, but occupied only 43.7% [...]
Design and reporting principles for experimental cancer evolution
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Evolutionary processes are inherently stochastic, such that independently evolving populations exposed to identical conditions may not follow identical trajectories. In cancer, this stochasticity contributes to diverse resistance pathways in tumor cell populations exposed to the same therapeutic pressures. Experimental evolution provides a controlled framework for studying these dynamics by [...]
A Context-Aware Framework for Biological Health Index Harmonization and Machine Learning-Aided Health Forecasting of Waterbodies
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Computational Engineering, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
National biological monitoring repositories, such as the U.S. EPA’s STORET/WQX, accumulate ecological health scores of water bodies from many agencies using heterogeneous biological indices and scoring conventions. Due to the different standards these agencies adhere to, these scores are not directly comparable. This difference in health score scales and benchmarks undermines large-scale [...]
A circulation-based hypothesis for vertebrate body plan evolution and endothermy
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
The emergence of novel vertebrate body plans and endothermy remain central questions in evolutionary science. Although gene regulatory networks provide powerful explanatory frameworks, the contribution of systemic physiology to vertebrate evolution warrants further investigation. Here, a hypothetical circulation-based model is proposed that integrates the redox and magnetic properties of blood [...]
Sleep as Obligate Phenotypic Switching: An Ultimate Explanation for Temporal Niche Partitioning
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
Why does natural selection mandate an involuntary, internally generated state change rather than permit flexible behavioral inactivity? Existing theories explain what sleep accomplishes – synaptic homeostasis, metabolite clearance, energy conservation – but these are proximate mechanisms, not ultimate explanations: themselves products of selection, yet adaptations acquired by the sleeping state [...]
Noise as a global change driver: a meta-analysis of its fitness consequences for birds
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health
Anthropogenic noise is a widespread yet underappreciated global pollutant. Despite mounting evidence that noise may affect the physiology and behaviour of birds, its consequences for fitness, and thus its capacity to impact population and evolutionary processes, remain unclear. Here, we conduct a pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis of the causal effects of anthropogenic noise on [...]