Preprints
There are 3723 Preprints listed.
Regional range restriction, not national endemism, predicts plant extinction risk: operationalising Conservation Imperatives for under-assessed tropical floras
Published: 2026-09-25
Subjects: Life Sciences
Abstract Aim: Tropical African flora is potentially threatened, yet species-level conservation priority-setting is rare in under-assessed floras. We tested whether range restriction drives extinction risk and operationalised the Conservation Imperatives at species level. Location: Rwanda, Albertine Rift biodiversity hotspot, eastern Africa. Methods: We applied this workflow to 367 IUCN-assessed [...]
We Have Never Been Hosts: Microbial Niche Weaving and the Evolution of Multicellular Life
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
Microorganisms are commonly understood as associates of multicellular hosts: organisms that first exist as biological individuals and are subsequently colonized by microbial communities. Here, we challenge this temporal and ontological ordering by distinguishing microbial presence from microbial influence. Microbial activity can shape biological processes without persistent physical association, [...]
Why abundance-based indices of niche breadth are biased, and what can be done to improve them
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology
Niche breadth is a central concept in ecology, and species with narrow niche breadth are believed to be more sensitive to anthropogenic factors than species with broad niche breadth. A myriad of methods to assess niche breadth have been suggested, many of them reliant on estimates of relative abundance (e.g., across habitats). We show, using both simulations and empirical data, that due to [...]
Evolutionary potential of natal dispersal in multiple blue tit populations while accounting for spatial autocorrelation among relatives
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
Natal dispersal is a key driver of ecological and evolutionary dynamics in populations. However, our understanding of genetic mechanisms underlying inter-individual variation in dispersal behaviour is still incomplete, despite their crucial role in the evolutionary potential and persistence of wild populations. Here, we investigate the genetic basis of natal dispersal distance in four blue tit [...]
Global Evidence for Biotic Differentiation Amid Contrasting Freshwater β-Diversity Responses to Human Impacts
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Human pressures are reshaping freshwater biodiversity worldwide, yet the generality of biotic homogenization and the contexts in which differentiation instead emerges remain unresolved. These contrasting responses reflect decreases or increases in spatial β-diversity, respectively, as local assemblages within a region become more similar or more distinct in community composition. We conducted a [...]
Different Beta-Diversity Frameworks Reveal Contrasting Roles of Species Abundance Distributions and Spatial Aggregation
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Aim Determining why community composition changes from place-to-place (spatial β-diversity) is central to advancing biodiversity theory and conservation of threatened species. Spatial β-diversity can occur most simply due to random sampling effects from the larger species-pool, such as the random placement and distribution of individuals and species. However, ecological processes can also [...]
Individual recognition and number prediction for Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) by passive acoustic monitoring
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Bioinformatics, Ornithology
Seabirds can be notoriously difficult to monitor using conventional methodology, as many breed on remote islands, are active nocturnally and many breed in underground burrows. Current census methods such as counting burrows and using playbacks are time-consuming and labour-intensive. One novel solution is to use passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) followed by individual recognition and number [...]
The marine annelid trait manifesto: A call to rethink functional traits for ecological and conservation research
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Animal Experimentation and Research, Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
The Raunkiæran shortfall, defined as the scarcity of knowledge regarding species' attributes, represents one of the major obstacles to developing sound biodiversity conservation strategies and understanding ecological processes. In this context, despite the importance of marine annelids as dominant components of benthic ecosystems and key agents of marine ecosystem functioning, no comprehensive [...]
INSTAR: reporting items for invertebrate welfare in research
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Concern for the welfare of research animals has expanded rapidly across taxa, with increasing focus on invertebrates. Recent evidence for affective experience in cephalopod, decapod and insect taxa, alongside shifts in public attitudes and regulation, has raised the stakes of how invertebrates are used and reported, yet no reporting standard adequately addresses them. Here we present INSTAR [...]
Which modelling choices have been tested where marine survey data are sparse? An evidence map of 95 studies and a graded practitioner guide
Published: 2026-09-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Aim: Species distribution models increasingly underpin marine conservation decisions, but most evidence on model performance comes from data rich settings unlike the sparse, clustered and irregularly sampled records typical of marine systems. We synthesise published evidence to establish which modelling choices govern predictive reliability when data are limited and translate the result into [...]
Caenorhabditis elegans and Serratia marcescens host-parasite coevolution model strains derived through mutagenesis and experimental evolution
Published: 2026-09-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Here we present a detailed description of the derivation of a collection of Caenorhabditis elegans and Serratia marcescens strains and populations that have been mutagenized and passaged in a series of experimental evolution projects over the past two decades. These experimental strains and populations provide a powerful resource for the study of host-parasite coevolution and have so far been [...]
A Geospatial informed Conservation Strategy for Sustainable Management of Dalbergia sissoo (Roxb.) Population in India amidst Climate Change and Pathogen Induced Mortality Stress
Published: 2026-09-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
The natural population of Dalbergia sissoo, is declining due to biotic and abiotic stressors. Existing studies focus on pathogen-induced mortality in D. sissoo, but the impact of climate on habitat loss and population decline is limited. This study fills this gap by integrating climate change impacts and pathogen outbreaks to assess their combined influence on the distribution and survival [...]
Coordinated interannual change in NEON soil bacterial communities across continental North America
Published: 2026-09-23
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Microbiology
Soil bacterial communities change from year to year, but whether these changes are coordinated across distant ecosystems has not been well investigated. We leveraged publicly available soil data from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and applied statistical analyses to evaluate the temporal changes of soil bacterial communities across continental North America. Data were [...]
Global assemblage stability is driven by asynchrony shaped by environmental heterogeneity
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Evidence suggests the diversity-stability relationship relies on asynchrony among populations. Yet our limited understanding of how the mechanisms underlying stability and asynchrony manifest across ecological scales prevents reliable forecasts of ecological stability amid ongoing biodiversity change. Here, linking stability, asynchrony and species richness across plant, bird, mammal, amphibian, [...]
Regulation 1143/2014 has yet to curb the European Union’s invasive species crisis
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The European Union’s flagship legislation on invasive species, Regulation 1143/2014, was intended to deliver coordinated biosecurity across Member States. However, it continues to fall short of its ambitious goals as enforcement remains inconsistent, ecological priorities are often overridden by economic interests, taxonomic, geographic and ecosystem biases, and practical on-the-ground management [...]