Skip to main content

Preprints

There are 2569 Preprints listed.

IUCN Red List of Ecosystems. Mangroves of the Sahelian

Kolawolé Valère Salako, Sean G. MCGregor, Ena Suarez

Published: 2025-07-31
Subjects: Life Sciences

Mangroves of the Sahelian is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). It includes the marine ecoregions of Gulf of Guinea West and the Sahelian Upwelling. The Sahelian mangrove province had a mapped extent of 1883.0 km2 in 2020, representing 1.3% of the global mangrove area. The biota is characterised by 6 species of true mangroves and many [...]

Density dependence revisited: strong evidence for superlinear population growth

James A Orr, Kaleigh E Davis, Alicia H Williams, et al.

Published: 2025-07-30
Subjects: Life Sciences

Density dependence is a core principle in ecological and evolutionary theory, and yet the precise nature of the relationship between per capita growth and population size continues to ignite debate. While sublinear (convex/decelerating) density dependence is frequently observed in empirical studies, standard techniques for estimating density dependence are prone to unreliable inference. At the [...]

Illegal cattle trade brings New World Screwworm to wildlife and continues to destroy protected areas in Mesoamerica

Lucy Keatts, Luis Guerra, Jeremy Radachowsky, et al.

Published: 2025-07-30
Subjects: Agriculture, Animal Diseases, Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Entomology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Parasitic Diseases, Parasitology, Public Health, Veterinary Preventive Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health

The New World Screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax; “screwworm”) is a parasitic fly historically endemic to the Americas. Females lay eggs in open wounds of warm-blooded animals, including humans. The emerging larvae feed on the host’s living tissue, often resulting in severe damage and potentially death. After five decades of coordinated efforts, the screwworm was successfully eradicated from [...]

IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Gulf of Guinea - North

Kolawolé Valère Salako, Sean G. MCGregor, Ena Suarez

Published: 2025-07-30
Subjects: Life Sciences

Mangroves of the Gulf of Guinea - North is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). It includes the marine ecoregions of Gulf of Guinea Central, Gulf of Guinea Upwelling, Gulf of Guinea West. The Gulf of Guinea - North mangrove province mapped extent in 2020 was 6961.2 km2 across, representing 4.7% of the global mangrove area. The biota is characterized [...]

A new model to quantify the probability of collision between birds and aircraft: applications for onboard lighting

Ryan B Lunn, Bradley Blackwell, Esteban Fernández-Juricic

Published: 2025-07-29
Subjects: Life Sciences

Globally, bird and aircraft collisions are a major safety hazard and monetary expense for the aviation industry. Empirical evidence suggests that the behavioral response of the animal just prior to a collision is a critical factor in determining whether a collision occurs. However, no theoretical framework exists to predict the probability of a collision based on the escape response of the animal [...]

Evolutionary Origins of the Blood Vascular System in Metazoans – A Microbial Perspective

François Papale, Louis-Patrick Haraoui

Published: 2025-07-28
Subjects: Life Sciences

This opinion piece posits two intertwined major evolutionary transformations – the advent of the circulatory system in animals and the subsequent emergence of sterile organismal compartments it enabled – as promoted by microbial communities. These transformations should be considered significant in that they shaped the ability of downstream multicellular organisms to diverge and attain new [...]

Trade-offs between nature and people reveal challenges in translating global conservation targets into national realities

Sophie Caitlin Jago, Gebremeskel Gizaw, Bezawit Genanaw, et al.

Published: 2025-07-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Nutrition

Achieving global biodiversity targets depends on the ability of individual countries to translate targets into reality on the ground. In 2022, 196 parties committed to conserving 30% of the planet by 2030, yet questions remain over whether existing protected areas are effective at conserving biodiversity, and furthermore whether conservation successes impact the wellbeing of local communities. We [...]

What's really happening on the Barro Colorado Island 50 ha forest plot?

John Alroy

Published: 2025-07-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

1. Over the decades, Barro Colorado Island (BCI) has incubated major conceptual and empirical advances in ecology. For example, the theoretical zero-sum multinomial (ZSM), log series, and Poisson log normal (PLN) models have been used to describe abundance distributions and quantify diversity in the BCI 50 ha forest plot. 2. A new model called the compound exponential-geometric series (CEGS) [...]

Rediscovery and Habitat Assessment of the Endemic Philippine Medaka (Oryzias luzonensis) in Northern Luzon

Brian Wade Jamandre, Nico Jose Leander, Faith Santiago-Tadeo, et al.

Published: 2025-07-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences

The endemic Philippine medaka Oryzias luzonensis, confined to the Laoag (Padsan) watershed in Ilocos Norte, Northern Luzon, had not been recorded in the wild for over 40 years, prompting its classification as Endangered by the IUCN in 2021. Field surveys conducted from January to May 2024 across six sites using traditional push nets successfully rediscovered the species in three Solsona [...]

Threatened Alpine and Subalpine Ecosystems of Australia: An IUCN Red List of Ecosystems Assessment Version 0.5

Jessica A. Rowland, Chloe Sato, Tracey J Regan, et al.

Published: 2025-07-28
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

DeepResearch_Eco: A Recursive AgenticWorkflow for Complex Scientific Question Answering in Ecology

Jennifer D'Souza, Endres Keno Sander, Andrei Aioanei

Published: 2025-07-27
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

We introduce DeepResearch_Eco, a novel agentic LLM-based system for automated scientific synthesis that supports recursive, depth- and breadth-controlled exploration of original research questions—enhancing search diversity and nuance in the retrieval of relevant scientific literature. Unlike conventional retrieval-augmented generation pipelines, DeepResearch enables user-controllable synthesis [...]

Flawed analysis invalidates claim of a strong Yellowstone trophic cascade after wolf reintroduction: A comment on Ripple et al. (2025)

Daniel MacNulty, David Cooper, Michael Procko, et al.

Published: 2025-07-27
Subjects: Life Sciences

Ripple et al. (2025) recently argued that large carnivore recovery in Yellowstone National Park triggered one of the world’s strongest trophic cascades, citing a ~1500% increase in willow crown volume derived from plant height data. In this comment, we show that their conclusion is invalid due to fundamental methodological flaws. These include use of a tautological volume model, violations of key [...]

The Marsupial Database: A comprehensive dataset on the ecology and life history of American and Australasian marsupials

Mariana Silva Ferreira, Rodrigo C Rossi, Stephane Batista, et al.

Published: 2025-07-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Marsupials are an important but typically neglected group of mammals that have been overlooked in many comparative analyses of vertebrate ecology and life-history evolution. In order to address this knowledge bias, we have developed The Marsupial Database. The Marsupial Database contains traits for a phylogenetically diverse set of 414 extant and recently extinct (last 200 years) species from all [...]

Physical and Migration Metrics of White Storks (Ciconia ciconia) and the influence that landfills play in their variation

Andrew Christopher Slater

Published: 2025-07-24
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Zoology

1. White storks (Ciconia Ciconia) are a traditionally fully migratory species and their numbers in western Europe were decimated in the last century. Their numbers have since boomed and they have altered their migratory strategy to have become a partially migratory species. This change has been ascribed in large part to anthropogenic food subsidies, particularly in the form of landfill sites. 2. [...]

Assessing direct effects of insect change on insectivore populations in the United Kingdom

Luke C Evans, Malcolm D Burgess, Simon G. Potts, et al.

Published: 2025-07-24
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology

1. Declines in insect abundance are a cause for concern, with potential downstream impacts on the function of ecosystems. Insects are key food resources for insectivorous vertebrates, with evidence that declines in these species could be driven by changing insect abundance. 2. Quantifying the direct effect of insect abundance on vertebrate population dynamics is challenging especially at large [...]

search

You can search by:

  • Title
  • Keywords
  • Author Name
  • Author Affiliation