Preprints
There are 3152 Preprints listed.
Evaluation of site frequency spectrum-based demographic inference methods for use in conservation contexts
Published: 2026-03-15
Subjects: Evolution, Genomics
Genomic methods for inferring historical effective population size (Nₑ) trajectories offer valuable tools for conservation, yet their reliability under conditions typical of conservation datasets—small sample sizes, reduced-representation SNP data, and recent demographic change—remains poorly characterised. We evaluated the performance of two widely used site frequency spectrum (SFS)–based [...]
Assessing the contribution of greenhouse gas emissions towards organisational biodiversity footprints
Published: 2026-03-15
Subjects: Biology
Organisations play a key role in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, which are closely connected. Biodiversity footprinting has initially suggested that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions may contribute to a large proportion of many organisation’s biodiversity impacts. If true, mitigating GHG emissions could help organisations to tackle their climate and biodiversity liabilities in [...]
Impacted Bones: Can extant primates help identify tool-use in early hominins?
Published: 2026-03-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
Despite recent advances pushing back the earliest record of tool use, how and when it first emerged in the hominin lineage, and the extent to which it featured amongst the numerous co-existing hominin species, remain critical questions in palaeoanthropology. In addition to analysing extinct hominin fossils and lithic toolkits, tool-use in extant primates should be studied to help answer this [...]
The use of multi-response models to improve inferences about natural selection
Published: 2026-03-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Natural selection, the relationship between trait and fitness, is a key determinant of evolutionary change and population adaptation. Therefore, accurate estimation of natural selection is important. In 1983, Lande and Arnold proposed a simple regression-based approach which allows the measurement of selection on a range of traits whilst accounting for confounding variables. However, issues [...]
Drivers of roe deer use in fragmented forest landscapes; implications for management in the context of policy driven forest expansion
Published: 2026-03-13
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Zoology
Forest expansion is a major current land use change across Europe. How this will affect the forest use of the most common European wild ungulate species, roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), and associated forest ecosystem services and disservices is poorly understood. Using a forest-agricultural mosaic landscape in northeast Scotland, we selected forests across a size and connectivity gradient as a [...]
Thermodynamic heterogeneity patterns reveal higher-order soil organization in indigenous agroecosystems of the U.S. Southwest
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Dynamic Systems, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources and Conservation, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Remote Sensing, Science and Technology Studies, Soil Science, Spatial Science, Sustainability
Soil spatial heterogeneity and diversity support the stability and productivity of food systems, yet their multidimensional structure remains difficult to quantify at spatial scales relevant to agricultural resilience. A process-based framework grounded in fundamental physical principles is therefore needed to describe these spatial processes across landscapes. The aim of this study was to [...]
Photographs and observations suggest Superb Fairy-wren Malurus cyaneus x Variegated Fairy-wren Malurus lamberti hybridisation
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
We observed and photographed an unusual looking male Fairy-wren at Lake Eden, just north of Brisbane, Queensland. The plumage of this individual displays a blend of Superb Fairy-wren Malurus cyaneus and Variegated Fairy-wren Malurus lamberti characteristics, supporting the notion of a novel hybridisation event between these two species. We have observed this likely hybrid on multiple occasions in [...]
An update on the Black-naped Pheasant-pigeon and search for Long-billed Myzomela on Fergusson Island, Papua New Guinea
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
Searching for lost species– those without conclusive documentation for a decade or longer– has emerged as a core goal of conservationists during the current extinction crisis. While documenting these species is an important first step, sustained efforts to study and conserve these often data-deficient and rare taxa are necessary to increase prospects for long-term survival. Here we report on an [...]
Understanding Conservation Decision-makers’ Preferences for Evidence
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Policy, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Economics, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Effective conservation depends on decisions informed by evidence that is both trustworthy and relevant to specific local contexts. However, little is known about which characteristics of evidence conservation decision-makers prioritise when deciding what information to trust. 2. We explored decision-makers’ preferences for different attributes of evidence using a discrete choice experiment in [...]
The lens of the Sonic Holobiont. A perspective on acoustic influence on microbial communities and its application as an additional layer to the holobiont concept.
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Arts and Humanities, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Arts and Humanities, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
When studying micro and macro biomes in the quest for a more general understanding, we can hardly escape from a holistic perspective. At first, symbiosis was demonstrated to be a ubiquitous phenomenon in living cells, shaping evolutionary patterns across species at very different scales. The “holobiont” concept gains a central role in modern biology. The observation of the complex inter- and [...]
Global latitudinal and bathymetric gradients in body size among cartilaginous fishes (Gnathostomata: Chondrichthyes)
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Understanding the macroecological rules governing body size variation across environmental gradients has long been a central focus of biology for centuries. Bergmann’s rule – the tendency for animals to reach larger body sizes in colder environments – has been studied in endotherms but with mixed support. However, phylogenetically informed tests of this rule in ectotherms remain scarce, and there [...]
Why your causal diagram should probably include sampling and measurement processes
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
Insect scientists are starting to use causal diagrams to display assumptions about causal relationships between variables that exist before any data have been collected. The perception appears to be that these assumptions are sufficient to determine whether observed associations between variables can be interpreted causally. But an observed association implies an observation process (sampling and [...]
A Global Review of Wetland Biodiversity and Carbon Connections
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy
As human actions have degraded global ecosystems over time, communities have often combated ecosystem function loss through restoration with a singular focus, falling on one side of the habitat and biodiversity protection or carbon sequestration dichotomy. Wetlands are no exception to this trend, and the large global push to protect and restore wetlands has widely ignored multiple-benefit [...]
Reconstructing the Holy Loch Food Web: A simple system for interpreting large numbers of Barcode of Life Database (BOLD) Biodiversity Index Numbers (BINs) for use in taxonomy, natural history and conservation, using Chironomoidea (Diptera) as a model taxon.
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
Mass, low-cost-, non-destructive DNA sequencing/barcoding via UK BIOSCAN, based at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, is now creating hundreds of thousands of invertebrate Cytochrome c Oxidase sub unit 1 (COI) barcodes from specimens collected across the United Kingdom (UK). Holy Loch Nature Reserve (HLNR), in Argyll, Scotland, joined the project in 2024, and in the same year, our first 6350 DNA [...]
Evaluating the efficacy of window treatments to reduce bird–window collisions
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
Collisions with glass are a leading anthropogenic driver of avian mortality. Window treatments can be highly effective at reducing collisions, however, treating windows remains uncommon and many treatments are applied that do not follow evidence-based standards or guidelines. To evaluate the efficacy of window treatments that meet versus do not meet guidelines, and the drivers influencing [...]