Preprints
There are 3756 Preprints listed.
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 [...]
Mining online behavioural data to measure zoonotic spillover risk
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Efforts to predict zoonotic disease dynamics rarely directly quantify the fine-scale animal-human interactions that drive spillover. Public digital data (i.e., iEcology) could capture these behaviours at large scales, across time and space. Further, recent statistical advances allow us to semi-automate these processes, providing a framework for continuous exposure monitoring and risk prediction. [...]
Subsistence fisheries in Small Island Developing States: the case study of the goby-fry fishery in Guinea Gulf
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Community-based Research, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
1. Artisanal and subsistence fisheries are crucial for the livelihood and food security of local communities of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), yet they remain largely excluded from formal catch statistics and management frameworks. Using Ostrom’s Social-Ecological Systems (SES) diagnostic framework, this study characterizes the previously unreported goby-fry (“peixinho”) fishery across 14 [...]
When and how to integrate probability and nonprobability samples to monitor biodiversity
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Species occurrence and abundance data are generated by probability or nonprobability sampling. Under probability sampling, sites are selected according to a known design (e.g. stratified random sampling). Under nonprobability sampling—for example, the collection of data by citizen scientists at sites of their own choosing—they are not. Whereas probability samples tend to be relatively small [...]
AphidTraits: an open dataset of temperature-dependent trait responses in aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae)
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Aphids are among the most destructive and economically impactful group of agricultural pests. Their successful management hinges on integrative and sustainable control practices. Given the global scope of aphid impacts, mathematical models are invaluable for developing informed control strategies, particularly in the context of changing climate. Such models typically require detailed empirical [...]
Foraging group size affects repeatable individual variation and strategic social plasticity
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Animal Studies, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Although game theory successfully predicts how negative frequency dependence can maintain behavioural variation through stable equilibria, it does not predict whether this variation reflects repeatable differences among individuals or variation within individuals. Because social group size influences how individuals respond to social information, it may shape how individual variation is [...]
Growing disequilibria in species distributions and assemblage diversity until the end of the 21st‑century
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Biodiversity forecasts almost universally assume that species are in equilibrium with contemporary environmental conditions. The consequences of this assumption are rarely tested, yet it may systematically bias inference and prediction whenever past natural or anthropogenic disturbances leave legacy effects keeping biodiversity in disequilibrium. Here we test how accounting for such legacy [...]
Quantification of total fish eDNA concentration to optimize the detection of rare species and sampling effort
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
eDNA metabarcoding is now a widely used method for monitoring aquatic biodiversity, but detecting rare species from extra-organism eDNA samples remains a challenge. Yet, rare species, whether threatened or newly colonizing organisms, are the primary targets of biological conservation measures. Replication and sample volume, as well as PCR replication, are among the main parameters studied to [...]
Beyond the prohibition list: redirecting negative subsidies into positive incentives could mitigate overfishing and protect coastal communities in WTO fisheries reform
Published: 2026-09-21
Subjects: Environmental Policy, Environmental Studies, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation
The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies is a landmark in multilateral environmental governance, yet its current phase of negotiations on addressing subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing is contentious due to perceived welfare risks for small-scale fishers. In framing the debate around prohibiting subsidies, negotiators have thus far given little [...]
Positive outcomes and insights for scaling from a randomized pilot of a gear exchange program to reduce bycatch in small-scale fisheries
Published: 2026-09-21
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Behavioral Economics, Environmental Studies, Marine Biology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Incentive-based conservation programs offer a promising approach for reducing fishing pressure on threatened species while supporting coastal livelihoods, yet causal evidence remains scarce. Modest budgets and small samples are a persistent challenge to evaluating pilots of novel conservation programs. We conducted a 12-month pre-registered randomized pilot of a gear exchange program in Aceh [...]
As invasions slow down, biosecurity must move inward
Published: 2026-09-21
Subjects: Animal Studies, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies
Rates of non-native-species first records and establishment are slowing. This is encouraging, but it changes rather than resolves the biosecurity problem imposed by biological invasions. As external establishments decline while national non-native-species pools remain compositionally distinct, a growing share of remaining invasion opportunity should lie in redistribution among connected [...]
Stomatal responses of herbaceous plants to climate change since the 1800s: A case study using herbarium specimens
Published: 2026-09-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Background and Aims: As climate change accelerates, plants are expected to respond in myriad ways, such as shifting phenology or altering the density or size of stomata. Nonetheless, most studies to date have focused on just a single facet at a time. Methods: Here, we used herbarium specimens to examine stomatal responses to climate change in two perennial herbaceous species that have not [...]