Preprints
There are 2943 Preprints listed.
Life-history evolution and uninvadable mortality schedules with and without intergenerational energy transfers
Published: 2026-01-19
Subjects: Evolution
Intergenerational energy transfers are widespread in nature, yet most life history theory assumes that organisms balance energy production and consumption at each age, leaving the evolutionary consequences of transfers underexplored. We develop a life history model under two energy budget constraints: (i) no transfers, where production equals consumption at each age, and (ii) transfers, where [...]
Morphological feminization in hermit crabs (family Paguridae) induced by parasitic peltogastrid barnacles (Crustacea: Cirripedia: Rhizocephala)
Published: 2026-01-19
Subjects: Marine Biology
Rhizocephalan barnacles are highly specialized parasitic crustaceans that profoundly alter the morphology, physiology, and reproduction of their decapod hosts. In hermit crabs (Paguridae), parasitism by peltogastrid rhizocephalans has been reported to induce feminization of male secondary sexual traits, such as the development of female-specific pleopods and the reduction of cheliped size; [...]
Phylogenetic Perspectives on Heavy Metal Hyperaccumulation in Fungal Lineages
Published: 2026-01-19
Subjects: Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Microbiology, Other Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health
Across the fungal kingdom, the ability to hyperaccumulate and sequester toxic heavy metals from the environment appears to have evolved multiple times. Although in plants, animals, and bacteria the evolution of heavy metal hyperaccumulation is well studied, and despite potential applications of hyperaccumulation in mycoremediation, fungi are under-investigated. Here, we compile a novel dataset [...]
The evolution of niche construction in social species
Published: 2026-01-19
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Niche construction is a behaviour where the local environment is changed by individuals, often to improve reproductive success (e.g. nests or burrows). In social species, the niche construction behaviour of an individual also changes the local environment of others. In such cases, individuals could cheat and not contribute to the social behaviour, but instead make use of the efforts of others. [...]
Wild fire salamanders (Salamandra salamandra) prefer natural housing conditions ex-situ
Published: 2026-01-19
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Life Sciences, Zoology
The European fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) is threatened by infection with the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal), which has caused massive population declines in several European countries. One attempt to conserve the genetic diversity of fire salamanders is to keep individuals of affected or vulnerable populations in ex-situ assurance populations. However, [...]
The role of barrier zones in controlling invasive species: A microcosm experiment
Published: 2026-01-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology
Around the world, invasive species have altered ecosystems, entailing both social and economic consequences. Further, preventing and controlling their spread requires high costs. One common approach to control invasive species is through barrier zones. A barrier zone is a region surrounding an initial invasion where management of the invasive species is conducted, including direct harvesting. [...]
The interplay between epigenetic mechanisms and deleterious mutations: implications for fitness, evolution and conservation
Published: 2026-01-13
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics
Understanding the causal effects of genetic mutations is essential for explaining fitness variation, forecasting evolutionary trajectories and assessing extinction risk, yet remains a fundamental challenge, particularly in natural populations. While amino acid substitutions can alter protein structure and function, mutations affecting gene regulation can also have significant fitness [...]
Temperature carryover effect revealed for marine fishes using spatio-temporal distributed lag models
Published: 2026-01-13
Subjects: Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Understanding the impact of changing temperature on population densities is necessary to predict the likely impact of climate anomalies (e.g., marine heatwaves) or forecast distribution shifts under future climate scenarios. Population densities are often analyzed using spatio-temporal models (STMs), which typically predict densities based on local habitat conditions while also estimating latent [...]
Measuring Nature’s Contributions to People – what data do we have?
Published: 2026-01-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
The concept of Nature’s Contributions to People, established by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, extends the ecosystem services approach by acknowledging the many perspectives and world views about human-nature relationships. Quantifying these relationships requires robust data and tools. Using existing databases and artificial [...]
Ecological examples of nonstationarity, nonlinearity, and statistical interactions in dynamic structural equation models
Published: 2026-01-13
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecologists are adapting structural causal modelling for spatial, phylogenetic, and time-series analysis. However, ecological extensions of path analysis and structural equation models (SEM) typically assume that interactions (“path coefficients”) are stationary, linear, and additive, while ecological and evolutionary dynamics are often nonstationary, nonlinear, and include statistical [...]
Bridging Science and Policy: A Global Review of Socio-ecological Indicators Guiding Biodiversity Action
Published: 2026-01-13
Subjects: Biology, Community-based Research, Environmental Monitoring, Human Ecology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Nature and Society Relations, Other Political Science, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Sustainability
1. Biodiversity continues to decline despite a proliferation of indicators intended to inform conservation policy. We asked which socio-ecological indicators are actually reaching decision-makers, how they are used, and where critical gaps persist. 2. Following a scoping-review protocol and PRISMA workflow, we screened 906 documents in Web of Science and Scopus and analyzed 43 studies that [...]
Meat’s Role as a Staple Food and the Opportunity to Improve Dietary Patterns in America
Published: 2026-01-09
Subjects: Medicine and Health Sciences
Many Americans choose to eat meat, with beef and poultry being their top protein choices. The best available evidence indicates that most Americans consume meat in amounts at, or near, levels modeled in the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. There is an opportunity, however, for many Americans to improve how they consume meat, including selecting leaner cuts and using healthful preparation [...]
Consensus on future research directions in the Phylum Rotifera
Published: 2026-01-09
Subjects: Life Sciences
Rotifers play key roles in aquatic ecosystems, yet significant uncertainty remains about their diversity and evolution, and basic knowledge is still lacking to address practical challenges related to global change. To identify the major knowledge gaps hindering progress, we carried out a Delphi process both online and during the 17th International Rotifer Symposium, involving more than forty [...]
Data aggregation blurs inferred temporal trends in bird sampling
Published: 2026-01-09
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ellis-Soto et al. (2023, Nat Hum Behav) reported that disparity in bird-sampling density between U.S. city neighbourhoods rated as safe versus risky for real estate investment (a practice known as “redlining”) increased by 35.6% between 2000 and 2020. We show that this reported trend arises from data aggregation and linear model misspecification. Using the original neighbourhood-level yearly data [...]
Wild boar population control needs more than recreational hunting
Published: 2026-01-09
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity
This perspective addresses the challenges of wild boar (Sus scrofa) population control in two different scenarios: reactive management to control disease epidemics and proactive management of wild boar populations at larger geographic scales. Intense but silent wild boar culling can significantly contribute to local outbreak control. Larger wild boar free buffer zones might work in front-like [...]