Preprints
There are 3604 Preprints listed.
Connecting Habitats: Wildlife Occupancy Across the Satpura-Pench Corridor
Published: 2026-08-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
The Satpura–Pench Corridor (SPC) is one of the most important wildlife linkages in Central India, connecting the Satpura and Pench Tiger Reserves, and facilitating the movement and persistence of tigers and other large mammal meta-populations across the Central Indian landscape. However, habitat fragmentation, infrastructure development, mining, agricultural expansion, and other anthropogenic [...]
Toward a standardized workflow for pre-processing large vegetation-plot databases
Published: 2026-08-17
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences
Large vegetation-plot databases have opened unprecedented opportunities for investigating vegetation patterns and processes across large spatial and temporal scales. However, such databases are typically created by combining pre-existing smaller databases or datasets that often used different standards and protocols, leading to data inconsistencies (e.g., different taxonomy and nomenclature) and [...]
The knowledge landscape of jaguar science: rapid growth, thematic structure, and regional inequalities
Published: 2026-08-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Understanding how scientific effort is distributed is essential for evaluating the evidence available to guide species conservation. We assessed the temporal, thematic, methodological, and spatial organization of jaguar (Panthera onca) research across the species’ range. Using 1,028 bibliographic records, we applied a metadata-based scope filter, defining a primary analytical corpus of 857 [...]
Marine holobionts: a model arena for host–microbe biology, from ecosystem function to biotechnology
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Microbial symbioses are the operating system of marine biology. Nearly every macroscopic organism in the ocean exists as a holobiont, the consortium composed of a eukaryotic host and its bacterial, archaeal, microeukaryotic and viral partners. Marine holobionts span a broader range of the metazoan tree of life than likely any other ecological setting on the planet. This breadth makes the marine [...]
Density dependence buffers natural populations against multiple stressors
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Predicting population persistence under global change requires understanding how populations buffer against interacting stresses. Gradual stresses, such as droughts, suppress individual performance, whereas abrupt stresses, such as harvesting, remove individuals from populations. Because these stresses interact through density-dependent responses of growth, reproduction and survival, predicting [...]
How ecology can trap evolution under climate change
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Ecological responses to climate change, including plasticity, behaviour, demography, and interactions, can actively trap evolutionary trajectories, not simply facilitate or impede adaptation. Despite growing interest in eco-evolutionary dynamics under climate change, we lack a framework for predicting when ecological change reshapes evolutionary responses. Here, we propose three modes of [...]
Neuroactive pollution alters shoaling in fish, but group phenotype matters
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Collective behavior governs how animal groups evade predators, forage, navigate, and share information. Yet it is rarely the focus of research on human-induced environmental change, particularly in the case of chemical pollution. Here, we show that exposure to the common neuroactive pollutant temazepam disrupts shoaling dynamics in fish (Poecilia reticulata), with effects shaped by group [...]
Cold adaptation in mammals: mechanisms and genomic insights from bats
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Evolution, Genetics, Physiology
Cold environments impose strong energetic constraints on mammals, driving adaptations including thermogenesis, insulation and torpor. Bats are the only mammals capable of powered flight and inhabit different climates, yet the evolutionary basis of their cold tolerance remains poorly understood. In this study, we screened 571 records and retained 137 studies on mammalian cold adaptation. While [...]
BioShifts v2 and BioShiftR: tools for navigating and analysing species range shift data
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Reframing marine host-microbe symbioses: from taxonomic inventories to functional convergence
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
In October 2025, the Trends in Host-Microbe Symbioses Symposium at the University of Padova (Italy) brought together a global community of researchers, with the aim of taking stock of the current trajectory of marine host-microbiome research. Integrating perspectives from ecology, evolution, biogeochemistry, and biotechnology, the symposium documented a clear transition from descriptive surveys [...]
Alignment dynamics: how environmental restoration reshapes disease risk
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Ecological change can generate variable infectious disease outcomes even when it produces similar shifts in biodiversity, habitat structure, or pathogen hazard. Existing disease-ecology frameworks identify the components and pathways governing transmission, but less explicitly formalise how their relative timing and spatial organisation determine when transmission opportunities emerge. We argue [...]
Mate choice copying in non-human animals: an update of two meta-analyses
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology
Mate choice copying, the use of social information from the mating decisions of others, is a taxonomically widespread form of social learning with the potential to shape sexual selection. Two meta-analyses concluded that social information moderately and positively biases mate choice, but both rest on literature searches now at least seven years old. Using a multilingual, [...]
Voluntary wheel use across animal taxa: motivation, enrichment, stereotypy and ethological interpretation
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Exercise wheels are simple devices for recording animal movement, but they elicit surprisingly complex behaviours. In laboratory rodents, running wheels are key for studying voluntary exercise, circadian rhythms, motivation, energy balance, stress physiology and brain plasticity. Outside rodents, wheel-like devices have also been provided to rabbits, cats, squirrels, reptiles and invertebrates. [...]
How closed is “closed”? Ambiguity in British Columbia’s Closed Containment aquaculture regulations
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Zoology
We examine disease-transmission risks to wild salmon associated with containment technologies proposed in 2025 under British Columbia’s transition away from open-net pen aquaculture. To ensure consistent terminology, and to avoid the mischaracterization of marine “semi-closed” flow-through systems as “closed containment,” we clarify categories of aquaculture production technologies and compare [...]
Beyond participation: Indigenous researchers leading biodiversity monitoring and territorial governance in the Amazon
Published: 2026-08-14
Subjects: Biodiversity, Integrative Biology
Indigenous Territories harbor some of the world’s best-preserved ecosystems and are central to biodiversity conservation. Paradoxically, the knowledge of the people who have historically maintained these ecosystems remains underrepresented in conservation science. Here we present a collaborative program for monitoring biodiversity and water quality of the Nãnsêpôtiti (Iriri) River in the Panará [...]