Preprints
There are 3359 Preprints listed.
WildMAPS: A Global repository and visualisation tool for habitat suitability predictions
Published: 2026-06-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
The Global Biodiversity Framework outlines a consensus of global targets for reversing the decline of biodiversity. A core theme that underpins the framework is the identification of areas that hold the most potential for realising positive outcomes for biodiversity. Identifying these areas is a complex process involving large scientific datasets and stakeholders from a range of background and [...]
Choices that matter: the impact of substitution models on machine learning-based species delimitation inference
Published: 2026-06-17
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics
The choice of nucleotide substitution models is a cornerstone of phylogenetic inference, influencing the accuracy of the estimated evolutionary parameters and, by extension, demographic and species delimitation model selection. With the growing adoption of machine learning methods trained on simulated data, it remains unclear how the substitution model used during simulation training influences [...]
Blitz the Gap: a nation-wide effort to guide citizen science toward the needs of biodiversity science
Published: 2026-06-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
To resolve persistent biases in conservation assessments and forecasting, we urgently need more systematic collection of biodiversity data. Citizen (or, community) science, despite its reputation for unstructured data, offers a particularly promising path forward, mobilizing participation at scales and speeds unmatched by traditional monitoring. Here, we introduce Blitz the Gap, a pan-Canadian [...]
Are We Mapping Ecosystems or Models? Framework Choices Dominate Food Web Topology and Extinction Inferences
Published: 2026-06-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Aim Ecological networks are widely used to assess community structure, stability, and responses to disturbance. Such networks often require model-based reconstructions (e.g., based on traits or theoretical constraints); however, the extent to which these frameworks influence ecological inference remains unexplored. Here, we assess whether macroecological inference derived from ecological [...]
How cities lock in biodiversity persistence, recovery, and decline
Published: 2026-06-15
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Cities are expanding biodiversity plans, restoration projects, green infrastructure, corridors, and nature-based solutions. This Perspective defines biodiversity lock-ins as self-reinforcing urban pathways that make it difficult to reverse biodiversity persistence, recovery, or decline. It contributes a durability lens that links six urban mechanisms with biodiversity-specific features, including [...]
Connected but Misaligned: Rethinking Urban Nature for Biodiversity, Equity, and Resilience
Published: 2026-06-15
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Urban nature is often planned through partial forms of connectivity: habitat corridors for biodiversity, green infrastructure networks for ecosystem services, accessibility networks for public use, and governance networks for implementation. Yet connected urban nature can still fail. Connectivity misalignment occurs when connections in one domain coexist with disconnection, inequity, risk, weak [...]
A data-driven assessment of the global community structure of pelagic zooplankton biomass
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Marine Biology, Statistical Models
Aim: Zooplankton often dominate pelagic metazoan biomass, making them a central component of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles. In this study, we aimed to: (1) provide biomass distributions of zooplankton functional types to support marine ecosystem monitoring and biogeochemical model evaluation; and (2) investigate regional and seasonal patterns of biomass across marine zooplankton [...]
Hunting in a tough neighborhood: juvenile octopus interactions with territorial and follower fish
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Octopuses are keystone species in shallow-water marine ecosystems. Although researchers mostly focus on predator-prey interactions, many non-lethal yet non-neutral interactions occur, particularly among fish. These range from possible cooperation through kleptoparasitism and scavenging to occasional octopus predation on an unwary fish. We evaluated some of these interactions using video [...]
Advancing public pro-environmental action for global seagrass conservation
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Environmental Education, Environmental Studies, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Psychology, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences
Seagrass meadows support biodiversity, climate mitigation, and human well-being, yet remain threatened by interacting anthropogenic pressures. Public engagement is increasingly promoted in seagrass conservation, but the behaviours most relevant to reducing seagrass decline remain poorly defined. We surveyed 172 seagrass knowledge holders from 39 countries and territories, representing 1942 [...]
EntoScan and BEEomass: a standardized imaging system and a physically motivated model for high-throughput dry biomass estimation of arthropods
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Computational Biology, Computational Engineering, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Engineering, Entomology
Computer vision and AI are now widely used for automated insect classification, but their potential for estimating other traits, such as biomass, is not yet fully explored. Insect biomass is a key measure of ecosystem function, informing ecosystem services, food webs, and environmental change. It is also used to track population trends and estimate the contribution of insects to ecosystem carbon. [...]
Tree species richness effects on pre-dispersal seed predation are mediated by tree fruit type
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Forest BEF experiments are only now reaching a stage at which natural tree regeneration can be studied, offering new opportunities to understand how biodiversity shapes trophic interactions during early demographic filtering. Here, we quantified seed productivity and insect-mediated pre-dispersal seed predation on 12 tree species across a tree species richness gradient from 1 to 16 in the [...]
An integrated framework for unifying our understanding of nonconsumptive predation risk effects
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Predation risk can induce risk-induced trait responses (RITRs) – changes in prey defensive traits including behavior, morphology, life history, and physiology – thought to have profound effects on prey fitness and population dynamics (termed ‘nonconsumptive effects’). Yet, predicting the magnitude of RITRs and their fitness consequences remains difficult because outcomes depend heavily on [...]
Evolutionary and operational trade-offs in assisted gene flow for climate-adaptive forestry
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Assisted gene flow (AGF) is an adaptive forest management strategy to increase forests' resilience to climate change, yet little is known about how management decisions interact with the strength of natural selection and introgression dynamics that co-determine relative stand productivity. We used individual-based, spatially explicit simulations to investigate how spatial configuration (ranging [...]
The crabeater seal reference genome reveals hallmarks of persistently large effective population size and sustained population expansion in the World’s most abundant pinniped
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
Population genetic theory predicts that a species’ demographic history shapes patterns of genome-wide variation. However, conservation genomic studies have disproportionately focused on small or declining species, where low genetic diversity and inbreeding are major concerns, while highly abundant species have attracted comparatively less attention. Here, we investigate the crabeater seal [...]
Nest architecture as overlooked material culture: the case for systematic study of construction behaviour across nest-building primates
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Animal Studies, Anthropology, Biological Psychology, Biology, Comparative Psychology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Frans de Waal's work highlighted an uncomfortable question: not whether animals have complex cognitive lives, but why we are so reluctant to recognise them. Nest building in great apes is perhaps the most striking example of this problem. Every great ape builds a nest, every day, for the entirety of its adult life. The behaviour has been documented ecologically for decades. Yet the internal [...]