Preprints
There are 2681 Preprints listed.
Epigenetic changes associated with reproductive investment and life-history trade-offs in lekking male black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix)
Published: 2025-10-05
Subjects: Genomics, Molecular Genetics, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Life-history trade-offs are a central concept in evolutionary biology, yet their underlying molecular mechanisms are not yet fully understood. Whilst much research has focused on genetic variation, epigenetic mechanisms, which regulate gene regulation, may be equally important. To investigate this, we collected blood samples from 50 male black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix) before and after the [...]
Understanding the adequacy and representativeness of species distribution data
Published: 2025-10-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Species occurrence data is the fundamental unit of any species distribution analysis, biodiversity patterns, species extinction vulnerability, and temporal trends. This data is also a critical component of monitoring progress towards global biodiversity targets, such as those included in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). [...]
Genomic insights into the origin of ecotypes
Published: 2025-10-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
A century ago, Göte Turesson introduced the ecotype concept to describe populations of species that are phenotypically and genetically differentiated by adaptation to contrasting habitats. His simple idea—that ecological divergence can occur below the species level—has had lasting influence, inspiring experimental tests of local adaptation across taxa. Today, ecotypes are described throughout the [...]
Narrative-Movement Framework (NMF): A socio-ecological systems (SES) approach to human narratives, animal movement, and coexistence in shared landscapes
Published: 2025-10-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Other Arts and Humanities, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences
1. Managing human-wildlife coexistence is essential for biodiversity conservation in places where humans and nonhumans compete for access to ecosystems. Viewing human-wildlife conflict as part of a complex web of positive and negative connections that exist between humans and nature is essential. 2. The field of socio-ecological systems (SES) seeks to understand these connections between [...]
The properties of individual fire events are essential for understanding global fire regimes
Published: 2025-10-05
Subjects: Life Sciences
Aim: As fire activity changes globally, we need to better understand the spatial and temporal characteristics of the individual events that, when aggregated, constitute fire regimes. Most global studies analyze point detections of burned area, without delineating or considering the properties of individual events. Furthermore, there is a critical need to understand fire patterns within the [...]
What fraction of the genomic basis of local adaptation are we missing?
Published: 2025-10-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
How will species adapt to changing environments? To what extent does adaptation to previous conditions maintain the variation needed to adapt to future conditions? To answer these kinds of questions, we need to identify locally adaptive alleles and quantify their effects. Theory shows that the architecture of adaptation can depend upon the nature of mutation and on how ecology shapes the [...]
Social media versus scientific literature: Comparing climate change discourses to support efficient communication and policy alignment in the Iberian Peninsula
Published: 2025-10-03
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Science and Technology Studies
Understanding disparities between scientific priorities and public discourse is critical for improving climate change communication, fostering public engagement, and supporting evidence-based policymaking. Here we investigated thematic and spatial dynamics of climate change-related content in scientific literature and social media. We focused on the Iberian Peninsula over the 2012-2022 decade, as [...]
Global biodiversity measurement to meet scale-dependent needs and opportunities
Published: 2025-10-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Business, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In the face of rapid ecological decline, biodiversity information is essential for safeguarding life on Earth. Although this information is increasingly valued by governments, businesses, and other stakeholders, it remains insufficiently accessible and usable. Because the rarity and functions of biodiversity vary greatly across land- and seascapes, the global and local ecological and social [...]
Linking actions to outcomes for biodiversity in Nordic forestry
Published: 2025-10-02
Subjects: Life Sciences
The lack of a unified biodiversity metric to measure outcomes against a company’s biodiversity ambitions and societal conservation goals has hindered the implementation of a rigorous, science-based approach to biodiversity actions by companies. Here we propose that the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration (STAR) metric offers a science-based framework for forestry companies to measure and [...]
Complex effects of sex reversal on reproductive success in wild frogs
Published: 2025-10-01
Subjects: Life Sciences
Sex reversal, when the environment overrides genotypic sex determination, is theorized to exert wide-ranging effects on population dynamics and evolution in ectothermic animals. The expected outcomes critically depend on the reproductive ability of sex-reversed individuals and the viability of their offspring, but empirically next to nothing is known about these traits in natural populations. [...]
Extensive climate-induced range shifts in butterflies across the globe
Published: 2025-09-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ongoing global change is leading to widespread species redistribution1,2. Range shift attribution, however, remains poorly resolved, partly due to the strong variation in range shift detection signals in space, over time and across the tree of life2. We compiled range shift data in 15 languages and with expert assessments, encompassing 1,758 butterfly species from 109 countries (~10% of the known [...]
Native bee genus diversity within bee-friendly urban gardens varies little along an urbanization gradient
Published: 2025-09-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology
Urban bee populations are threatened by ongoing habitat loss and fragmentation. Bee-friendly gardens with abundant forage and nesting resources may help offset these pressures, but attributes of the broader urban landscape could also play an important role. We explored bee diversity within 32 bee-friendly gardens distributed throughout the city of Kelowna, British Columbia. Our objectives were to [...]
CartograPlant: Bridging genomic, phenotypic, and environmental data to advance plant resilience and eco-evolutionary insight
Published: 2025-09-30
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Breeding and Genetics Life Sciences, Plant Pathology, Systems Biology
Climate change is threatening plant health and productivity at all spatial scales, and these impacts are further compounded by the rising incidence of invasive pests and pathogens. Effectively addressing these challenges requires a comprehensive understanding of plant demography as well as the mechanisms and drivers of adaptation. Achieving this understanding requires the integration of [...]
Alternative Promoters Expand Transcriptional Complexity of Temperature Stress Responses in Cassava
Published: 2025-09-29
Subjects: Agriculture, Bioinformatics, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences
Plant abiotic stress responses involve two major gene expression regulatory mechanisms: alternative promoter usage and differential expression. Although differentially expressed genes (DEGs) have been extensively studied, alternative promoter genes (APGs) remain poorly characterized despite their potential importance. We systematically compared APGs and DEGs in cassava (Manihot esculenta), a [...]
Born this way: individuality is seeded before birth and robust to environmental stress
Published: 2025-09-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Consistent individual differences in behavior, known as behavioral individuality, are pervasive across the animal world and have major ecological and evolutionary consequences. Nevertheless, we still have a limited understanding of what drives individuality and how it emerges during ontogeny. Here, we subjected clonal individuals to a ubiquitous yet critical environmental challenge—the threat of [...]