Preprints
There are 2420 Preprints listed.
Macroalgae morphological complexity affects the functional diversity of epifaunal annelid assemblages
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology
Host structural complexity influences the diversity of associated epifaunal species, but its role in shaping functional trait diversity remains underexplored. We developed a trait-based framework to assess whether macroalgal structural complexity significantly influences the functional assembly of marine annelid epifauna in a sandstone reef system at Enseada dos Corais Beach (NE Brazil). Sampling [...]
Writing the pause: epitranscriptomics in the eco-evolutionary logic of dormancy
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
Dormancy has been widely recognized as an evolutionarily conserved strategy that enables cells and organisms to endure environmental stress, resource scarcity, or developmental arrest. While transcriptional regulation has been extensively studied in this context, increasing attention is being directed toward post-transcriptional mechanisms that allow rapid and energy-efficient control of gene [...]
Nutritional needs and social bonds: how early-life dependencies shape meerkat sociality
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Across species, social systems vary in their extent of interactions, competition, cooperation, and cohesion. Though there has been considerable research on overall social structures, the dynamics of how an individual's social niche develops during early life and how biological needs of offspring shape sociality has received less attention. In this study, we took a longitudinal approach targeting [...]
High-frequency eDNA metabarcoding survey data of coastal fish across the Japanese Archipelago
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The Japanese archipelago, spanning over 3,000 km from subarctic to subtropical zones (approximately 24°N to 45°N), hosts a diverse array of coastal fish communities shaped by pronounced latitudinal gradients. Here, we present a high-frequency environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding dataset of coastal fishes collected across the archipelago. Using the MiFish primer set targeting a hypervariable [...]
Going Global by Going Local: Impacts and Opportunities of Geographically Focused Data Integration
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Biodiversity conservation is a global challenge that requires the integration of global and local data. Expanding global data infrastructures have opened unprecedented opportunities for biodiversity data storage, curation, and dissemination. Within one such infrastructure – the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) – these benefits are achieved by aggregating data from over 100 regional [...]
Multiple global-change drivers and cascading effects in Mediterranean ecosystems: Lessons from an iconic national park
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Historically, Mediterranean systems, particularly the Mediterranean Basin, have been substantially impacted by multiple regional-scale disturbances resulting from complex interactive effects of global-change drivers. However, such effects are typically studied on isolated groups of organisms, often disregarding how ecological processes such as biotic interactions affect ecosystem responses to [...]
Light color and nutrient availability alter trophic transfer from algae to zooplankton
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Freshwater plankton communities experience both natural variation of light color and nutrient availability and shifts due to eutrophication and brownification. These changes can alter algal community structure, but whether variation of light color impacts trophic transfer from algae to zooplankton is unknown because most research ignores color and focuses on light intensity. We used microcosms [...]
From vocal homophily to vocal repertoire flexibility: Unravelling the socioecological drivers of language evolution
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Animal Studies, Anthropology, Behavior and Ethology, Evolution
Since diverging from the last common ancestor with bonobos and chimpanzees, the communication system of the hominin lineage underwent a radical transformation. Vocal production learning - the ability to produce novel vocalizations based on experience - is the necessary pre-condition for changing an ape-like communication system into one that is infinitely flexible, extensively learned, and [...]
Forest composition and diversity buffer microclimates and enhance productivity
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Trees can buffer forest ecosystems against climate extremes, creating microenvironments that support diverse plant communities. We asked how diverse tree communities could influence the above- and below-ground moisture environment, thereby linking tree diversity and ecosystem function. To address this question, we integrated remotely sensed forest structure, growth inventories, microclimate [...]
Enhancing motivation to learn about the ocean through VR underwater field skills in a Higher Education setting
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly recognised as a tool for enhancing engagement and motivation in education. This is particularly true where access to experiential learning is limited, as is often the case in marine ecology courses. However, evaluations of the effectiveness of VR as a teaching and learning tool in higher education is limited. Here, we use the Explore experience developed by [...]
Elevating the importance of Risk of Bias assessment for ecology and evolution
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are key evidence synthesis methods informing research and policy. An assessment of the Risk of Bias (RoB) in included studies is normally considered an essential component of these. However, RoB assessment is rare in ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), and tools from other fields are seldom adopted. To identify reasons for this limited uptake, we surveyed [...]
Comparing statistical methods for detecting climatic drivers of mast seeding
Published: 2025-06-16
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Understanding the drivers of mast seeding is critical for predicting reproductive dynamics in perennial plants. Here, we evaluate the performance of four statistical methods for identifying weather-associated drivers of annual seed production, i.e, weather cues: climate sensitivity profile, P-spline regression, sliding window analysis, and peak signal detection. Using long-term seed production [...]
Avifaunal diversity in urban parks of Delhi is shaped by both anthropogenic and natural factors
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Urbanization leads to fragmentation and reduction of natural habitats which become islands of remnant biodiversity. As predicted by the Theory of Island Biogeography (TIB), fragment area and fragment isolation are major predictors of bird species richness in urban and rural habitats. This study is to understand patterns in avifaunal composition in select urban parks specifically in terms of area [...]
Characterising the structural complexity across major habitats of Tenerife, Spain
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Life Sciences
Understanding biodiversity changes across ecosystems requires the consideration of various biodiversity dimensions, such as habitat structural complexity – the degree of heterogeneity in the distribution of plant material in three-dimensional space. Yet, its inclusion in long-term biodiversity monitoring on oceanic islands remains limited. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) can be used to quantify [...]
Toxin resistance mechanisms span biological scales in the Royal Ground Snake (Colubridae: Erythrolamprus reginae)
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genomics, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Molecular Biology, Neuroscience and Neurobiology, Physiology, Systems and Integrative Physiology Life Sciences, Systems Biology, Zoology
Exposure to multiple toxic compounds imposes diverse selective pressures, potentially leading to a toxin-resistant phenotype that operates across biological levels. There are several known toxin resistance mechanisms–such as behavioral avoidance, metabolic detoxification, and target-site insensitivity. However, most studies have been conducted with exposure to a single toxin or have focused on [...]