Preprints
There are 3838 Preprints listed.
Who reads the Earth's archives? Geography, Income, and the Uneven Evidence Base for a Shared Planet
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Communication, International and Intercultural Communication, Publishing
Global environmental assessments depend on natural-archive evidence, yet where this evidence is produced and how its geography maps onto the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) remains unclear. Here we map the sampling and publication geography of 33,145 studies of past environments, tracing each to the SDG it addresses. The geography is highly unequal. A group of 26 countries is home to 57.5% [...]
Frequent recovery of Sydowia polyspora from brown spot needle blight-associated loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) needles in Alabama
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Plant Pathology
Sydowia polyspora is a widespread conifer-associated fungus that can function as an endophyte, saprophyte, or opportunistic pathogen, but its occurrence in southeastern pine systems remains poorly characterized. During surveys of symptomatic loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) in Washington and Cullman counties, Alabama, fungal isolates morphologically consistent with Sydowia spp. were recovered from [...]
Estimated Time to Act: A Global Assessment of Biodiversity Exposure to Human Modification
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Biodiversity, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Spatial Science
Biodiversity loss is accelerating under compounding human pressures, yet most conservation tools quantify the pressure species already face, rather than when it will push them beyond the levels they have experienced. This temporal blind spot limits proactive planning, particularly under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which sets action-oriented targets for 2030 and [...]
Interactive effects of land use change and climate drive the decline of a threatened boreal forest orchid in Finland
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Land use and climate change are two of the greatest threats to biodiversity globally. However, their interactive effects remain poorly understood. In the boreal forest biome, where species are experiencing increasing pressures from forest management and climate change, improved understanding of these effects is urgently needed. Here, we assess the impacts of forest loss and both baseline and [...]
Genomic variation in Sydowia polyspora in relation to geography and host symptom severity
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Plant Pathology
Background. Sydowia polyspora is a widespread conifer-associated fungus with ecological roles that vary among host and disease contexts. However, how its genomic variation corresponds to geography and host symptom severity remains poorly understood. We examined whether genomic differentiation among S. polyspora isolates recovered from symptomatic Pinus taeda varied between geographic regions and [...]
Selection Effects Associated with Leaf Area and Stomatal Density Drive Productivity of Young Temperate Tree Communities Under Different Water Exclusion Treatments
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. A positive relationship between species richness and productivity has been observed in forests around the world. The two classes of mechanisms thought to underlie this relationship, complementarity effects and selection effects, both rely on species’ traits, whereby the diversity of traits (under complementarity effects) or the presence of specific trait values (under selection effects) can [...]
Occurrence records recover moth flight timing but compress interannual phenological variation
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Phenological shifts are important indicators of climate-change responses, but large-scale inference requires coverage that structured monitoring rarely provides. Occurrence databases such as GBIF offer an alternative, although the reliability of different phenological metrics remains uncertain. I compared five metrics (Q10, Q50 and Q90 timing quantiles, weighted mean flight date and season width) [...]
What is Social Behavior? Clarifying and Integrating the Concept for Cross-species Research
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Spatial variation in keystone predation on foundation species drives local and landscape- scale diversity patterns
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Biodiversity, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The proposition that keystone predators increase biodiversity has been criticized for failing to consider the species facilitated by, rather than outcompeted by, dominant prey. Here, we revisit the relationship between the original keystone species, Pisaster ochraceus, and the diversity of rocky intertidal communities inclusive of competitively dominant prey, competitively subordinate [...]
The ecological world of driver ants (Dorylus): a review
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Driver ants (Dorylus) are among the most conspicuous and abundant predators in continental Africa. Their enormous surface-swarm raids and nomadic lifestyle have captivated naturalists for over 150 years, yet their ecology remains surprisingly poorly understood, especially compared to their Neotropical counterparts. Here, we review the ecology of African driver ants, synthesising knowledge of [...]
The role of environmental gradients in the ontogenetic shift of wood traits from seedlings to adults in two temperate tree species
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Tree development, or ontogeny, involves concurrent changes in plant size and environmental conditions, both of which can influence wood structure and function. Disentangling the factors underlying ontogenetic variation in wood traits remains a major challenge. This is important because wood underpins hydraulic efficiency, hydraulic safety, and mechanical support - functions critical for tree [...]
Where are the hake going? How age, environmental signals, and shelf habitat shape Pacific Hake (Merluccius productus) summer distribution
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology
Sustainably managing a multinational fishery on a transboundary, relatively long-lived and migratory fish stock is challenging, especially in a changing ocean environment. In a warming world, Pacific hake (Merluccius productus, Merluccidae), jointly managed by the U.S. and Canada, have been hypothesized to move north. However, in recent years the proportion of Pacific hake in the northern part of [...]
Large Language Models for Marine Protected Area Design and Management Planning
Published: 2026-10-12
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Natural Resources and Conservation
Achieving biodiversity targets requires advances in marine conservation planning and action. We make three arguments about large language models (LLMs): they add more value when embedded within decision-support systems; they integrate fragmented expertise, data, and tools; they can increase capacity in under-resourced settings through co-design. We illustrate these arguments with a conceptual [...]
Potential impacts of Ground-mounted photovoltaic panels on land cover and carbon storage in Norway – a scenario analysis
Published: 2026-10-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Energy Policy, Environmental Policy, Life Sciences, Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
In cool-temperate and boreal regions, ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) is rapidly emerging as a new land use, but planning-relevant evidence on land requirements, siting options, and land-system impacts remains limited. Based on an analysis of built and planned ground-mounted PV projects in Norway (n = 77), we quantify size, capacity density, land-cover composition and net greenhouse gas effects, [...]
Anthropogenic food subsidies shape parental foraging and offspring development in an opportunistic bird
Published: 2026-10-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Humans are transforming ecosystems by providing predictable anthropogenic food subsidies (PAFS), such as at landfills, now used by multiple animal taxa. In breeding animals, parental landfill use can influence offspring development, yet few studies have quantified parental landfill use and linked it to parental care and offspring development, behaviour or survival, limiting our understanding of [...]