Preprints
There are 2800 Preprints listed.
Ecosystem services from shellfish reefs as a nature-based solution: a global evidence synthesis to guide restoration and policy
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Context. Shellfish reefs, comprising oysters, mussels, clams, and mixed bivalves, act as ecosystem engineers and nature-based solutions (NbS), providing supporting, regulating, provisioning, and cultural ecosystem services (ES). Yet, despite rapid growth in restoration practice, the translation of ES evidence into policy and management remains uneven across regions and taxa. 2. Objectives. We [...]
Quantifying Energy-Efficient Evolution in Cursorial Avian Archosaurs Through Comparative Torque-Based Hindlimb Modeling
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Evolution, Paleobiology
Understanding the way evolution drives adaptations that “optimize” energy-efficiency in cursorial species provides instrumental insights into both biomechanical and bio-inspired engineering fields. This study quantitatively models the cursorial evolution of energy-efficient locomotion in bird-line archosaurs by comparing the hindlimb mechanics of Deinonychus antirrhopus (extinct theropod) and [...]
Quantifying impacts of policy and practice interventions on biodiversity and climate
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
There is urgent demand for ecosystem management interventions – targeted actions through policies and practices – that meaningfully address climate change and biodiversity loss while sustaining ecosystem delivery of water, food, fibre and fuel. Rigorous quantification of intervention outcomes is required for decision makers to identify, promote and scale effective interventions. Yet [...]
Forest fecundity declines as climate shifts
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Tree fecundity underpins regeneration, range tracking, and seed supply for assisted migration, yet may decline as climates move beyond reproductive niches. Using 34 years of nationwide harvest records from Poland (40,530 observations across 438 forest districts) for five dominant taxa — oaks (Quercus robur, Q. petraea), European beech (Fagus sylvatica), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), and silver [...]
Marker-Assisted Breeding for Salt Tolerance in Rice: In Bangladesh Context.
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
Salinity stress threatens rice (Oryza sativa L.) production across 1.056 million hectares of Bangladesh's coastal regions, with intensification projected due to climate change and sea-level rise. Marker-assisted breeding (MAB) has emerged as a transformative approach for developing salt-tolerant varieties, offering precision and efficiency over conventional methods. This review examines [...]
Hemitaeniochromis pumba, a new species of cichlid fish from Lake Malawi, Africa, with comments on related species.
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
A new species of haplochromine (Pseudocrenilabrini) cichlid fish, Hemitaeniochromis pumba is described from Lake Malawi, named for its outwardly angled, tusk-like oral jaw teeth, recalling those of a pig or warthog. It is assigned to the genus Hemitaeniochromis Eccles & Trewavas 1989 on the basis of its dark horizontal midlateral band, broken anteriorly but continuous posteriorly, with a [...]
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 Jonathan M. Anderson raised this question, soil ecology still struggles with a fragmented view on the coexistence of species. 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 [...]
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 are among the most ecologically diverse arachnids, yet their nutritional physiology remains poorly characterized despite their importance in both natural ecosystems and experimental settings. In captivity, whether in research facilities, zoos, or private collection feeding practices are often generalized and overlook the specific metabolic demands of spider biology. This has limited our [...]
Machine Learning Forecasting of the 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 [...]