Preprints
There are 2174 Preprints listed.
estar: An R package to measure ecological stability
Published: 2025-02-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Assessing ecological stability across populations or communities is a prime goal in biodiversity monitoring and conservation research. Quantifying stability is not trivial because its different aspects can be measured with various metrics. However, to date, no software enables measuring different stability metrics on ecological time-series data. 2. We present the estar R package that [...]
Repeated mitochondrial capture with limited genomic introgression in a lizard group
Published: 2025-02-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
Mitochondrial introgression is common among animals and is often first identified through mitonuclear discordance — discrepancies between evolutionary relationships inferred from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA (nuDNA). Over recent decades, genomic data have also revealed extensive nuclear introgression in many animal groups, with implications for genetic and phenotypic diversity. [...]
Climate change intensifies plant-pollinator mismatch and increases secondary extinction risk for plants in northern latitudes
Published: 2025-02-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Climate change is altering the timing of species’ life-cycle events (i.e., phenology), but the rates of phenological shifts vary across taxa. These mismatches in phenological response may disrupt interactions between interdependent species, such as plants and their pollinators, which may lead to reduced plant reproduction via pollen limitation and contribute to secondary extinction risks for [...]
High-resolution habitat suitability maps for all widespread Italian breeding bird species
Published: 2025-02-18
Subjects: Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Tackling the current global biodiversity crisis requires spatially accurate biodiversity data to rapidly assess knowledge gaps and set conservation priorities. Obtaining accurate data across large spatial scales is often challenging, due to the massive logistical and economic requirements of large-scale surveys. Here, we provide high-resolution (0.81 to 81 km², depending on species ecology) [...]
A Julia toolkit for species distribution data
Published: 2025-02-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
(1) Species distribution modeling requires to handle varied types of data, and benefits from an integrated approach to programming. (2) We introduce SpeciesDistributionToolkit, a Julia package aiming to facilitate the production of species distribution models. It covers various steps of the data collection and analysis process, extending to the development of interfaces for integration of [...]
On the feasibility of nonadaptive, nonsequential abiogenesis
Published: 2025-02-18
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Computational Biology, Evolution, Molecular Biology, Molecular Genetics, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Systems and Integrative Physiology Life Sciences, Systems Biology
The emergence of life from non-living matter remains one of the most profound unresolved questions in natural philosophy. Classical models derived from the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis assume a gradual (sequential), selective assembly of biological precursors. Yet, for more than a century, all experimental efforts in this direction have failed in their attempt to achieve material abiogenesis. May be [...]
Report on spatial sampling designs for long term biodiversity monitoring of soil biota
Published: 2025-02-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Soil biota are extremely diverse and spatially heterogeneous. Sampling strategies that target the soil biota through metabarcoding must incorporate existing ecological theory and explicitly consider technical constraints. This report synthesizes empirical research from large-scale projects (SpaceMic, PhytOakMeter) to evaluate how spatial sampling design—specifically sample extent, number, and [...]
Spectral biology across scales in changing environments
Published: 2025-02-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Understanding ecosystem processes on our rapidly changing planet requires integration across spatial, temporal and biological scales. We propose that spectral biology, using tools that enable near- to far-range sensing by capturing the interaction of energy with matter across domains of the electromagnetic spectrum, will increasingly enable ecological insights across scales from cells to [...]
Assessing UAV direct-seeding for tropical forest restoration: carbon sequestration potential and cost efficiency
Published: 2025-02-14
Subjects: Forest Management, Life Sciences, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences
Introduction: Afforestation, Reforestation, and Revegetation (ARR) projects are key to global reforestation targets under frameworks like the Paris Agreement and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. However, manual planting remains labor-intensive and costly, limiting large-scale restoration. UAV-assisted direct seeding offers a scalable alternative, yet its carbon sequestration and [...]
Community (citizen) science as a tool to support nature’s benefits assessments in the UK: a systematic review and survey of community scientists
Published: 2025-02-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
1) Developing methods for valuing nature aim to address biodiversity and environmental crises caused by nature’s undervaluation in decision-making. However, implementing methods to assess nature’s benefits is challenging for a myriad of reasons. 2) We explored whether community science (CS) could support a more holistic assessment of nature’s benefits on a national scale using a mixed-methods [...]
Northward expansion of the thermal limit for the tick Ixodes ricinus over the past 40 years
Published: 2025-02-14
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
The tick Ixodes ricinus is the main pathogen vector in Europe. Many speculations have been made about the effect of past climate change on the potential distribution of this ectothermic organism, despite a poor understanding of how climate change has resulted in distribution changes to date. In this study, we used a public cross-sectional dataset of I. ricinus abundance at the northern edge of [...]
The effect of habitat health and environmental change on cultural diversity and richness in animals
Published: 2025-02-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
There is increasing evidence that habitat decline via fragmentation or species loss can lead to loss of cultural diversity, complexity, or richness in non-human animals. For example, a reduction in local bird species richness leads lyrebirds to sing less complex song, while great apes living in fragmented landscapes have smaller cultural repertoires. However, the link between animal culture and [...]
An influential biodiversity market may not direct investment towards habitats of national importance
Published: 2025-02-13
Subjects: Biodiversity
Biodiversity markets are proliferating globally, aiming to increase private investment to address conservation financing gaps. Markets commodify biodiversity to facilitate trade of biodiversity ‘units’ even across heterogeneous ecologies. However, the metric used to commodify biodiversity can strongly influence which habitats become valuable in biodiversity markets, and there has been little [...]
Diversity and Distribution of Amphibians and Freshwater Fishes on Australian Islands
Published: 2025-02-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Freshwater ecosystems cover less than 3% of the earth’s surface, yet support nearly 10% of all known animal species, majorly represented by freshwater fishes (69%) and amphibians (24%), both of which are highly threatened groups. Geographically isolated freshwater species, such as those inhabiting islands, are at high risk. Australia, with ~9300 islands, is home to diverse island freshwater [...]
Monitoring animal movement diversity as a component of biodiversity
Published: 2025-02-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
Animal movement is increasingly being quantified in novel ways, with high potential for integration in broad-scale efforts to monitor biological diversity. Here, we define movement diversity as a form of biodiversity measuring variation in animal movement from the level of individual animals to communities. We present a framework to develop a common language for movement diversity metrics which [...]