Preprints
There are 2749 Preprints listed.
Plasticity and scaling through multinucleation: a key adaptation to challenging environments
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Cell and Developmental Biology, Cell Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Multinucleate cells, single cells containing multiple nuclei in a shared cytoplasm, are found across the eukaryotic tree of life. Having evolved independently in fungi, plants, protists, and animals, they thrive in environments ranging from nutrient-poor deep-sea sediments to dynamic soil microhabitats and host tissues. Multinucleate organization enables spatial specialization without internal [...]
Large regional variation in global impacts of agriculture on terrestrial insects and other arthropods
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Many insects and other arthropods are reported to be in rapid decline worldwide, mainly driven by changes in land use and climate. At the same time, arthropods provide many important services that benefit agriculture, and thus their losses may pose risks to food security. Although biodiversity responses vary between global realms, this spatial heterogeneity is not well-understood and is rarely [...]
Unravelling the Enigma of Soil Animal Diversity: An Integrated Perspective from Functional Traits to Evolutionary History
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Why does a single square meter of forest soil harbour thousands of animal species? Fifty years after J.M. Anderson raised this question, soil ecology still struggles with a fragmented view of coexistence. Researchers often study taxonomy, functional traits, and phylogeny in isolation. Each approach adds insight but leaves gaps in the picture of soil biodiversity. In this paper, I therefore [...]
A novel semantic theory of the assembly rules of interaction networks
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
In the web of life, every interaction between species tells a story of cooperation, conflict, or chance. For centuries, ecologists have charted these stories to better understand phenomena such as pollination and disease. We have been using the lens of network science to distill them into topological patterns such as nestedness or modularity. Yet, like in the old buddhist parable of the blind [...]
Bergenia ligulata: A Comprehensive Review of Its Phytochemistry, Pharmacology, and Public Health Potential
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences
Bergenia ligulata (Wall.) Engl., commonly known as “Pashanbheda” or “stone breaker,” is a perennial herb of the family Saxifragaceae, widely utilized in South Asian traditional medicine for the prevention and treatment of urinary and renal disorders. This review synthesizes current evidence on its ethnomedicinal relevance, phytochemical composition, pharmacological properties, and potential [...]
Reevaluating Spider Nutrition: The Essential Role of Arachidonic Acid in Captivity
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
Spiders represent one of the most ecologically diverse groups within the class Arachnida, yet their nutritional physiology remains insufficiently elucidated, despite their crucial ecological and experimental significance. In both natural and captive environments, these arthropods occupy key trophic positions that regulate ecosystem dynamics and contribute to the stability of arthropod [...]
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: 2025-11-23
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: 2025-11-21
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: 2025-11-21
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 [...]