Preprints
There are 2569 Preprints listed.
“But I can’t preregister my research”: Improving the reproducibility and transparency of ecology and conservation with adaptive preregistration for model-based research
Published: 2025-08-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
1. Preregistration is an open-science practice which aims to improve research transparency and mitigate questionable research practices, like cherry-picking results. It helps protect against cognitive biases, like hindsight bias, that can influence how study outcomes are interpreted. There has been little uptake of preregistration in ecology and conservation, arguably because existing [...]
Infection profiles in a wild rat–protozoan network are shaped by host traits and environmental factors
Published: 2025-08-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Pathogenic Microbiology
Heterogeneity in parasite infection among hosts shapes transmission dynamics and spillover risk to other host species but remains poorly understood in natural systems. We applied network-based stochastic block modeling and machine learning to a uniquely rich dataset to identify and predict protozoan infection profiles in introduced black rats (Rattus rattus) sampled along an environmental [...]
Parallel concepts and future opportunities across the biological control and invasion sciences
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Medicine and Health Sciences
The biological control and invasion sciences are long-standing research fields that have accrued enormous fundamental and applied interest. However, their theoretical and practical integration remains in its infancy. Utilizing an expert elicitation process with participants spanning these sciences, we identify conceptual parallels and future opportunities to strengthen links and address future [...]
Associations on land and at sea? A pilot study on the utility of proximity loggers to assess inter-individual relationships in colonial seabirds
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Marine Biology, Ornithology
Accurate and extensive data collection is essential for understanding animal sociality, but collecting associations between individuals remains challenging. Animals often associate and interact outside of the range of an observer, especially in environments such as underwater or underground. However, the development of proximity loggers using Bluetooth and radio frequency to detect associations [...]
Weather conditions are systematically associated with long-range nonroutine movements in a large scavenger
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Movement data are valuable for the conservation of Old World vultures, as these move across large distances and experience a wide range of threats. As vultures rely on soaring flight, the interplay of solar radiation, as well as wind direction and strength, is crucial for both short- and long-range movements. However, no study explored the extent to which weather conditions can predict long-range [...]
The SORTEE Guidelines for Data and Code Quality Control in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Open data and code are crucial to increasing transparency and reproducibility, and in building trust in scientific research. However, despite an increasing number of journals in ecology and evolutionary biology mandating for data and code to be archived alongside published articles, the amount and quality of archived data and code, and subsequent reproducibility of results, has remained [...]
Flower constancy in pollinators: a bouquet of agendas shapes interactions among mutualistic partners
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
Plant-pollinator interactions have become a major research area due to their impact on key ecosystem services. One pollinator behaviour of particular importance is flower constancy, i.e. the tendency of pollinators to temporarily specialise on one flower species during a foraging trip, thereby promoting cross-pollination. The costs and benefits of flower constancy for both plants and pollinators [...]
From Shorelines to Social Media: Mixed-Methods Insights into Urban Fishing Practices, Policy Gaps and Culture in the Digital Age
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recreational and subsistence fishing are globally significant forms of marine resource use, contributing to food security, cultural identity, and social well-being across diverse coastal communities. Yet these non-commercial sectors are often overlooked in formal fisheries monitoring and governance. In California’s San Francisco Bay Area, non-commercial fishers represent a wide range of [...]
Connectivity, Fire, and Land Use: Understanding Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) Persistence in Fragmented Watersheds
Published: 2025-08-14
Subjects: Biodiversity, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Aim: Effective biodiversity conservation requires improved understanding of species distributions, and of the influence of threatening processes on those distributions. This is particularly important for freshwater species, which are difficult to survey even as they are exposed to disproportionately high levels of threat. Here we address this issue for the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), an [...]
Revisiting evolution at the rear edge
Published: 2025-08-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Rear-edge populations occur at species’ warmer range limits, with many still occupying glacial refugia. They offer valuable insights into evolution under changing climates yet are underused as models. From two decades of research, we identify three equally likely evolutionary patterns in rear edges: high levels of genetic diversity and differentiation, elevated genetic drift, and strong local [...]
Connectivity for the conservation of Borneo’s biodiversity
Published: 2025-08-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Ecological connectivity is fundamental to biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation, facilitating species movement, genetic exchange, and ecological function across landscapes. In Borneo, connectivity is increasingly threatened by deforestation, agricultural expansion, infrastructure development, and urbanization, leading to habitat fragmentation and isolation. This chapter examines the [...]
The Norfolk Island Proposal
Published: 2025-08-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
This paper proposes a novel ecological intervention: Ethical Marine Offal Dumping (EMOD) as a low-cost, high-impact method of restoring apex predator presence in marine ecosystems. Using Norfolk Island as a case study, where tiger sharks are significantly larger and more abundant than regional norms, the paper explores the unintended yet beneficial ecological consequences of routine livestock [...]
Comparing screening outcomes of national and global biodiversity datasets for private sector nature-related disclosures
Published: 2025-08-12
Subjects: Biodiversity
In response to demand for better biodiversity stewardship from the private sector, frameworks such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) have been developed to help companies assess, manage and disclose their nature-related impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities. A key initial screening step is to identify operations in ecologically sensitive areas, often done [...]
Eclipse of reason: debunking speculative anticipatory behavior in trees
Published: 2025-08-12
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Advancing plant behaviour research requires adherence to robust experimental designs, the formulation of alternative falsifiable hypotheses, sufficient replication, and stringent controls. These tenets safeguard the field from slipping into pseudoscience. A recent study by Chiolerio et al. (2025) claims that Picea abies trees collectively anticipate solar eclipses via electrome-based signalling. [...]
Rethinking termite methane emissions: does the mound environment matter?
Published: 2025-08-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
Termites are important decomposers in tropical ecosystems, and they emit methane (CH4) from digesting plant matter. Termite contributions to global CH4 emissions are calculated using species-specific termite CH4 emissions from individuals (termite emission factors; TEF) and estimated biomass, which overlooks how the termite mound environment may alter emissions to the atmosphere. Factors such as [...]