Preprints
There are 3165 Preprints listed.
Pre-registration and Registered Reports in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology: An Evidence-Based Appraisal by SORTEE
Published: 2026-03-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. A pre-registration is a time-stamped, read-only research plan that is written prior to data collection and analysis. This practice aims to increase transparency and reduce questionable research practices (QRPs) such as p-hacking and HARKing. Registered Reports are an article format with two stage peer review, that integrates Pre-registration and peer review and aims to additionally reduce [...]
Deep learning scans for selective sweeps using RAiSD-AI
Published: 2026-03-30
Subjects: Life Sciences
Recent advances in method and software development for selective sweep detection focus on using deep learning to improve detection performance. However, the adoption of deep learning in real-world analyses is slow, hindered by the lack of reusable tools that alleviate the interdisciplinary friction of integrating such methods for practical deployment. This chapter walks the reader through the [...]
Northern Sierra Historical Range of Variability and Current Landscape Departure
Published: 2026-03-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
This report describes modeling historical range of variability (HRV) and current departure for landscapes within the Northern Sierra ecoregion in California and Nevada. We discuss the need for this study with respect to the historical and contemporary context of the ecoregion, including background on the natural range of variability concept and the use of simulation modeling to quantify it. For [...]
Standardizing turn-taking metrics: A methodological toolkit for data annotation across species and taxa
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Animal Studies, Communication, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Conversational turn-taking, the cooperative reciprocal exchange of short and flexible turns, is fundamental for communication and social coordination. Initially thought to be uniquely human, recent research showed some evidence of cooperative turn-taking also in other animal species. However, systematic evaluations and comparisons of turn-taking skills within and across species pose considerable [...]
The collapse of environmental predictability erodes reproductive success in a Tropical seabird
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Climate change can alter not only when seasonal events occur on average, but also how predictable they are from year to year. Many long-lived seabirds show a paradox: breeding dates remain stable even as populations decline. Using two decades of data from Blue-footed Boobies (Sula nebouxii), we tested whether loss of environmental predictability could reduce reproductive success even when mean [...]
Historical subtidal regime shifts echoed in adjacent intertidal community
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Anthropogenic stressors can trigger regime shifts, causing ecosystems to reorganize into new states. Moreover, there is growing evidence of the importance of fluxes (e.g., energy, matter and nutrients) in linking adjacent systems, suggesting that regime shifts within one system may extend to neighbouring systems through cross-ecosystem interactions. However, empirical evidence supporting this [...]
On Information in Evolutionary Processes
Published: 2026-03-26
Subjects: Evolution, Population Biology
Since the first attempts to introduce an information-theoretical formalism into the description of evolutionary processes, several authors have argued that such approaches are inappropriate because biological evolution does not unfold in a predefined space of possibilities. To properly address that objection, we need to separate the semantics of the emergence of biological functions from the [...]
Population differentiation in functional traits shapes plant–consumer interactions along an elevational gradient
Published: 2026-03-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Understanding how intraspecific variation in functional traits shape species interactions is central to predicting ecological responses to environmental change. The relative contribution of genetic differentiation and phenotypic plasticity to trait variation and their consequences for species interactions remain poorly understood. 2. Here, we conducted a reciprocal transplant experiment using [...]
Integration of ecological knowledge in European landscape architecture: a systematic project-description review
Published: 2026-03-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Urban Studies and Planning
Landscape architecture has a strong environmental focus and clearly states the ambition to integrate ecological knowledge in its practice and theory. This study aims to assess the state of the art in integrating ecology in landscape architecture project design, identifying well-integrated ecological knowledge areas and potential knowledge gaps, to support future development of this integration. [...]
Predicting decay in functional diversity in plant communities under future climates
Published: 2026-03-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
Climate change is expected to cause widespread shifts in the composition of plant communities. However, the extent to which these changes will alter the composition and diversity of plant functional traits is less clear. Here, we assess how climate change may reshape the functional diversity of 32,996 plant communities by combining data on their traits and realised climatic niches with future [...]
How environmental conditions affect the acquisition, establishment, and persistence of microbial endosymbiosis in insects
Published: 2026-03-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Microbiology
Long-term interactions between insect hosts and their internal microbial symbionts are ubiquitous. As these interactions support many aspects of the insect host biology, restrictions to their establishment and maintenance could have important consequences to the survival of insects and functioning of ecosystems. The current literature provides extensive evidence that rapidly changing [...]
Species, geography, and weather conditions predict offshore migration in songbirds
Published: 2026-03-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The increasing development of offshore wind farms raises concerns about potential effects on migratory songbirds. Current wind farm monitoring techniques, such as radar, infrared cameras and motion detectors, capture this risk in general, but cannot reliably identify individuals to species level and thus fail to detect species-specific exposure to these structures. Due to their spatial focus on [...]
Scale dependence of avian functional rarity reveals mismatches between global and local conservation priorities
Published: 2026-03-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Aim. Spatial scale shapes both how rarity is defined and how conservation priorities are derived from it, yet most functional rarity assessments rely on a single (often global) reference pool. We test how the scale dependence of functional rarity affects hotspot identification and the alignment of global versus local conservation priorities in birds. Location. Global. Time period. Contemporary. [...]
A guide for integration of community ecology in landscape architecture: The Ecological Filters Framework
Published: 2026-03-25
Subjects: Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Urban Studies and Planning
The accelerating biodiversity crisis, driven by habitat change and urbanization, underscores the need to integrate ecological knowledge and landscape architecture. This paper introduces the Ecological Filter Framework (EFF), as a tool to foster this integration. By structuring complex ecological knowledge into tangible categories, the EFF is meant to empower practitioners to shape environments [...]
Situating AI in Environmental Science: Perspectives Across Sectors and Career Stages
Published: 2026-03-25
Subjects: Biotechnology
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly proliferating across career sectors, including those in the environmental sciences. The field’s reliance on technical analysis, complex and multidimensional datasets, and broad interdisciplinary job responsibilities makes it well-suited to benefit from advancements in AI. However, careers within environmental science are highly diverse and the [...]