Preprints
There are 2878 Preprints listed.
Spatial and environmental influences on the assembly of silk microbiomes in a social spider
Published: 2025-06-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences
In nesting animals, the built environment can play an important role in host-associated microbiome assembly. However, the sources and processes structuring the resulting microbiome remain underexplored. In the social spider Stegodyphus dumicola, philopatric sisters collectively build and maintain a silken nest, capture prey, and exhibit alloparental care. We used S. dumicola as a test system to [...]
Suspended particulates decline along a dense, small-stream mussel bed
Published: 2025-06-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Water filtration by freshwater mussels is a valued ecosystem service; however, it has not been well studied in natural settings. To examine the potential influence of mussel filtration on suspended particulates, we measured the concentration of Escherichia coli, chlorophyll-a, and total suspended solids along a stream reach with a dense mussel assemblage (Mussel Site) and a stream reach with no [...]
Phenotypic flexibility in the city: A meta-analysis on variation
Published: 2025-06-02
Subjects: Animal Sciences
Among global changes urbanisation is distinctive because it entangles a variety of human-induced rapid environmental changes, such as habitat loss and fragmentation, temperature change, introduction of human food sources, and pollution. Urban environments are assumed to be heterogeneous and variable in space and time. A key feature of animals coping with high environmental variability ought to be [...]
A framework for modelling thermal load sensitivity across life
Published: 2025-06-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology, Systems and Integrative Physiology Life Sciences
Forecasts of vulnerability to climate warming require an integrative understanding of how species are exposed to, are damaged by, and recover from thermal stress in natural environments. The sensitivity of species to temperature depends on the frequency, duration, and magnitude of thermal stress. Thus, there is a generally recognised need to move beyond physiological metrics based solely on [...]
Barriers and opportunities to preventing residential bird-window collisions
Published: 2025-05-31
Subjects: Biodiversity, Community-based Research, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Sociology
Collisions with windows are a leading source of avian mortality in North America. Window treatment options are commercially available; however, these solutions are rarely used. To investigate knowledge and perceptions of bird-window collisions, willingness to treat windows, and barriers and solutions to treating windows we conducted a survey of residents in Ottawa, Canada. Of 422 survey [...]
Pleistocene origins of cultural and linguistic diversification: how Homo sapiens and Neanderthals differed
Published: 2025-05-31
Subjects: Life Sciences
It is now widely assumed that Neanderthals possessed a human language-like communication system. What is yet unclear is how different this was from ours. Here we ask whether the communication system of Neanderthals shared a key feature of human languages: ergodicity. Ergodicity allows linguistic evolution to continue for purposes of social differentiation without changing the species-wide [...]
Mapping the next forest generation reveals multiple regeneration gaps across German forests
Published: 2025-05-31
Subjects: Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Plant Sciences
In face of global change and increasing forest disturbances, forest regeneration is crucial for ensuring future generations of trees and resilient forest ecosystems. However, spatially explicit information on the current availability and climate suitability of seedlings and saplings remains scarce. We assessed the potential to predict species-specific forest regeneration densities at high [...]
Quality, quantity, and the adaptive function of social relationships
Published: 2025-05-31
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology
Affiliative social relationships have clear links to fitness in many species, yet exactly why that is the case remains elusive. We unify theory from socio-ecology and network science to set forth testable predictions of how individuals should invest in their social relationships given the relative benefits of different social strategies across environmental contexts. We propose that relationship [...]
A systematic map of forest disturbance impacts on soil and litter fauna: knowledge gaps and a roadmap for future research
Published: 2025-05-31
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Natural disturbances such as fires, droughts, windthrow, and pest outbreaks are increasing in frequency and severity, placing new pressures on forest ecosystems. Impacts on aboveground biodiversity are well understood, but effects on belowground communities - particularly soil and litter invertebrate fauna - remain understudied. Given the vast diversity of soil organisms, forest types, and [...]
Gendered male and high-income country authors dominate publication at a One Health research organization
Published: 2025-05-28
Subjects: Life Sciences, Publishing, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Authorship on academic publications carries substantial weight for researchers in science fields. One’s position in a list of authors is typically used to signal information about author contributions and status, with the first and last authorship positions regarded as the most prestigious and important for career advancement. Therefore, any inequities that exist in the allocation of publication [...]
Herbarium specimens reveal regional patterns of tallgrass prairie invasion and changing species abundance across 130 years
Published: 2025-05-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences
The spread of non-native species is an acute threat to global biodiversity. However, a lack of long-term, spatially widespread occurrence data has prevented investigation of how multi-species invasions affect native assemblages. We harnessed more than 65,000 digitized herbarium specimens across 522 species to study how relative abundances of native and non-native species have changed since the [...]
Social plasticity across contexts in bobwhite quail
Published: 2025-05-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
An animal’s social network centrality has been linked to social benefits. However, the inverse effect of providing benefits to conspecifics on one’s centrality has received less attention. We investigated effects of foraging success, and accompanying food access provided to others, on an individual’s relationships in multiple social contexts using three captive groups of bobwhite quail (Colinus [...]
Exploring the factors underlying adaptive social plasticity in foragers using an agent-based model
Published: 2025-05-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
Recent studies in group-living species suggest that being a valuable group member (a source of information or other resources) should increase social connectedness. This is because individuals may recognize and associate more with valuable individuals to increase the chances of benefiting from their activity, a process we refer to here as adaptive social plasticity. However, it is still unclear [...]
A Critical Evaluation of Ecological, Environmental, and Legal Consequences of Cedrus libani Afforestation and Monoculture Plantations in Lebanon: The Case of Mount Sannine
Published: 2025-05-28
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
Cedrus libani (Cedar of Lebanon) is ecologically and culturally significant, but vulnerable due to historical decline and ongoing threats. This has driven extensive afforestation and reforestation efforts in Lebanon. Initiatives like the Sannine Project, however, often utilize large-scale monoculture plantations, frequently as afforestation on land without confirmed historical dense forest cover. [...]
Strong impact of the recent Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza panzootic on population dynamics of a long-lived bird
Published: 2025-05-27
Subjects: Other Immunology and Infectious Disease, Population Biology
Since 2020, the spread of a new Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza virus (HPAIV-H5N1) has triggered the most severe wildlife panzootic ever recorded, with suspected population crashes in hundreds of species. Yet, no study has evaluated the demographic mechanisms underlying these declines. We used Integrated Population Models and population forecasts to evaluate the demographic impact of HPAIV-H5N1 [...]