Preprint Feed – Ecology

by Estevens, R., Heinrichs, A. L., Ghedini, G. on October 27, 2025 at 12:00 am

Metabolism is density-dependent from unicellular to multicellular organisms. Understanding what drives metabolic suppression is important to explain population growth given the link between metabolism and biomass production. In the simplest scenario, metabolic suppression is caused by a reduction in resource availability with increasing population density. But both theory and experiments suggest that organisms can actively downregulate metabolism in crowded conditions. We experimentally […]

by doimo, a., Zanchetta, D., Battisti, A., Petit, G., Nardi, D., Azaele, S., Maritan, A. on October 27, 2025 at 12:00 am

Bark beetles pose a growing threat to coniferous forests worldwide, with outbreaks increasingly linked to environmental stress and host vulnerability. Most mechanistic models focus on equilibrium states, neglecting the dynamical nature of outbreaks triggered by environmental perturbations. Using Ips typographus as focal species, we present a minimal model capturing key processes such as threshold-driven mass attacks, with parameters adaptable to different environmental conditions. Under current […]

by Bieg, C., McMeans, B., Scott, A. M., McCann, K. on October 27, 2025 at 12:00 am

Despite the rapid pace of global change altering temporal environmental patterning, we lack a general understanding of how periodic environments structure ecological communities. In fluctuating environments, nonlinear dynamics associated with temporal trade-offs between competing species can create the potential for both niche differentiation (coexistence) and seemingly unexpected outcomes (exclusion) that deviate from deterministic coexistence theory. Yet, the mechanisms behind these outcomes […]

by Maroco, M. B., Pailloncy, L., Madec, S., Gjini, E. on October 27, 2025 at 12:00 am

We study a Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible (SIS) model with coinfection and multiple interacting strains where hosts move between a set of inter-connected patches. Under strain similarity and slow migration, we obtain a discrete model, following the corresponding continuous space model derived in (Le et al. 2023). In this model, the fast variables are total prevalence of susceptibles, single-infected and co-infected hosts in each patch (S,I,D). The slow variables are strain frequencies (z) in […]

by Lilli, G., Caillarec-Joly, A., Violet, C., Bouchoucha, M., Turon, X., Arnaud-Haond, S., Viard, F. on October 27, 2025 at 12:00 am

Ports are well-known entry points for marine non-indigenous species (NIS), which arrive as hitchhikers on ships. Ports are also expected to be gateways for the spread of NIS in the wild and resemble each other more than communities outside due to their singular characteristics. However, the uniqueness of species assemblages in ports and how they differ from natural habitats have only been marginally investigated, notably at regional scale. Using eDNA metabarcoding, we obtained a comprehensive […]

by Feitosa Bezerra, D., Bentley, L., Dwyer, R., Nisthar, D., Richardson, A. J., Simpfendorfer, C., Heupel, M., Rohner, C., Pierce, S., Dunn, D. on October 27, 2025 at 12:00 am

Understanding migratory connectivity is important for the conservation of highly mobile marine species facing escalating threats. Establishing baseline information on migratory connectivity is important to identify species and regions requiring transboundary cooperation for their conservation. Despite efforts to track migratory sharks and rays, information on transboundary movements is limited and often inaccessible to managers and policymakers. Here, we synthesised multimethod movement data […]

by de Zwaan, D. R., Paquet, J., Linhart, R. C., Nol, E., Smith, P. A., Hamilton, D. J. on October 26, 2025 at 12:00 am

Understanding migratory connectivity is essential for monitoring and conserving Arctic-breeding shorebirds, particularly given divergent rates of decline across populations. Stable hydrogen isotope analysis of feathers offers a scalable, non-invasive method to assign breeding origin, but current applications are limited by the absence of shorebird-specific calibration equations, which associate feather isotope values with environmental isotope gradients (isoscapes), and by longitudinal isoscape […]

by Cimatti, M., Cavalcante, T., Kujala, H., Si-moussi, S., Thuiller, W., Visconti, P., Di Marco, M. on October 26, 2025 at 12:00 am

The impact of climate change on biodiversity accelerates, calling for climate-resilient conservation strategies such as protecting areas of high climatic stability (i.e. climate refugia) or protecting the variability of species climatic niches (to preserve adaptive potential). Developing a spatial framework that integrates both strategies, we identify priorities to protect climatic niche components of 1,207 European vertebrates. Priority areas for protecting climatic niches under low climate […]

by Shit, B., Makinishi, S., Singh, T., Khan, I. on October 26, 2025 at 12:00 am

Background: Climate change can lead to warmer environments, facilitating higher pathogen growth and increasing disease burden. Climate change can also reduce the nutritional value of food resources, causing malnutrition, which can lead to impaired immunity and disease vulnerability. However, despite these associations, no experiments have tested how dietary manipulations and temperature variations interact to drive the effects of pathogenic infections. In this work, we conducted laboratory […]

by O’Connor, L. M., Cosentino, F., Demarquet, S., Gauzere, P., Hackbarth, T. X., Maiorano, L., Mancino, C., Renaud, J., Si-Moussi, S., Verburg, P. H., Thuiller, W. on October 25, 2025 at 12:00 am

Aim: Species and ecosystem processes offer essential benefits to people, known as Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP). However, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of NCP provided by terrestrial vertebrates on a large scale, and of the threats they face. To bridge this gap, we built a comprehensive dataset that documents the NCP provided by terrestrial vertebrate species in Europe, and analysed the conservation status and threats to NCP provider species. Location: Europe. Methods: We […]

by Baleba, S. B. S., Omondi, V. O., Mohamed, S. A., Getahun, M. N., Jiang, N.-j., Diallo, S. on October 25, 2025 at 12:00 am

The success of invasive species often relies on sensory adaptations that allow them to exploit new environments. Unlike most of its relatives, the spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) lays eggs in ripening fruit, making it a serious and rapidly spreading agricultural pest worldwide. Spice plants produce volatiles that repel many insects, making them a potential source of D. suzukii behavioural modulators. Here, we examined whether volatiles from clove (Syzygium aromaticum) could alter […]

by Mrema, F. A., Bhatta, B. P., Bista, P., Meng, Y., Wiedenfeld, L., Chukwuma, F., Njiti, V. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

The oyster mushroom is among the most extensively cultivated edible mushrooms worldwide. These mushrooms typically thrive on decaying broadleaf deciduous trees but are rarely found on conifers. A wild oyster mushroom strain was collected from pine trees in Mississippi. We characterized the strain using both morphological and molecular techniques. Pure cultures of this strain were obtained and utilized for spawn production, cultivation, genomic DNA extraction, and identification. Our research […]

by Doneski, S. M., Baine, Q., Ricks, K., Cary, S. J., Miller, K. B. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Insect conservation in the southwestern United States is hindered by limited information on distribution, phenology, and habitat, especially for small-range endemics. The Capulin Mountain Alberta Arctic butterfly (Oeneis alberta capulinensis F.M. Brown, 1970), a New Mexico Species of Greatest Conservation Need, is restricted to the Raton Mesa Complex and threatened by isolation, low dispersal, and extirpation from its type locality. We surveyed historic and potential sites to document current […]

by Thoma, A. E., Pereira, H., Giergiczny, M. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Riparian areas are among the most valuable ecosystems on earth due to their high biodiversity and contributions to human well-being, yet urban riparian areas face significant threats from urbanization and associated expansion. Current management strategies do not consider all the contributions of urban green spaces to human well-being. Over the last decade stated preference studies have been widely used to gain insights into public attitudes towards urban green spaces. However, whether and to […]

by Samad, I., Rana, D. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

While the Open Access (OA) publishing model may promote equity in the readership of scientific publications, its implications for global research authorship remain poorly quantified. We analysed 504,723 publications over the past decade from 350 Scopus-indexed ecology and evolution journals to compare publication rates and institutional diversity a) between Subscription-Based (SB) and OA publishing models, and b) before and after journals transitioned to fully OA, across country income groups. […]

by Wong, C., Choudhury, R. A. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Mushroom production relies heavily on compost and other substrates to grow and maintain fungal cultures. Large scale production of mushrooms can be achieved in specialized trays and grow rooms, however small-scale production of specialty mushrooms like lions mane (Hericium erinaceus) and pioppino mushrooms (Cyclocybe aegerita) relies on inoculation of small blocks of mushroom substrate in polypropylene bags, leaving spent mushroom substrate after production. Co-cultivation of mushrooms has been […]

by Kavishe, D. R., Tarimo, L. J., Msoffe, R. V., Walsh, K. A., Duggan, L. M., Butler, F., Kaindoa, E. W. W., Killeen, G. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Following the rapid scale-up of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) in 2008 across the Kilombero Valley of southern Tanzania, Anopheles gambiae Giles, a highly efficient and human-specialized malaria vector, essentially disappeared within two years and has rarely been detected since. However, an ecological study of its sibling species within the An. gambiae complex, namely An. arabiensis Patton and An. quadriannulatus Theobald, in an area spanning human settlements and conserved wilderness, […]

by Liao, M., Li, K., Li, C., Herzschuh, U., Ni, J. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Vegetation resilience, the ability of ecosystems to resist and recover from environmental perturbations, is critical for sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. Yet, its long-term dynamics and drivers remain poorly resolved. Here, we assess continental-scale vegetation compositional resilience over the past 8,000 years using 482 fossil pollen records from all major landmasses except Antarctica. We apply a composite resilience index based on time-series properties of pollen assemblages […]

by Agashe, M., Biswas, A., Karanth, P. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Chemical communication is a crucial signalling mode in lizards, yet its ecological and evolutionary drivers remain poorly understood. In geckos, chemical cues are secreted by follicular glands, which vary widely in number across species. To test whether this variation reflects phylogenetic conservatism or ecological adaptation, we assembled trait and ecological data for 659 species (Infraorder: Gekkota) and analysed three predictors: substrate use, diel activity, and climatic regime, using […]

by Romero-Fernandez, P., Vargas-Garcia, E., Borrego-Santos, R., Laiz-Carrion, R. L., QUINTANILLA, J. M., Landry, M. R., Kranz, S. A., Stukel, M. R., Kelly, T. B., Vargas-Yanez, M. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Investigating the time evolution of physical and biochemical properties of the ocean with in situ sampling can follow two approaches: Eulerian and Lagrangian. In the Eulerian approach, repeated measurements are taken at fixed locations, whereas the sampling point moves with the displacement of a water parcel in the Lagrangian approach. During the BLOOFINZ-IO cruise off northwest Australia, four Lagrangian experiments (cycles) were conducted with multidisciplinary sampling done at regular […]

by Maehn, L. A., Hof, C., Bybee, S., Brandl, R., Pinkert, S. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

The Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE) conceptualizes that temperature is the primary driver of species richness, a pattern well supported in terrestrial taxa but less certain for freshwater organisms. Limited global-scale evidence and frequent violations of MTEs assumptions, particularly the stationarity of body size and abundance, further obscure its applicability. In freshwater systems, body size and abundance are tightly linked to dispersal and range size, which differ markedly between […]

by Morton, S. G., Vucelic-Frick, G., Dickey, J. R., Rajput, B. S., Spiegel, C. J., Loomis, D. A., Jackrel, S. L., Burkart, M. D., Shurin, J. B. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

An ever-growing sea of plastic waste permeates even the most remote ecosystems; however, its ecological impact is unclear. Less persistent bioplastic alternatives are available but also have unknown environmental effects. We conducted a three-month experiment exposing plankton in experimental ponds to 10 concentrations of three different thermoplastic polyurethane microplastics, including two biodegradable bioplastics. Algal blooms with dense chlorophyll occurred consistently at high […]

by Phillips, A. P., Lee, A. E., Mortensen, B., Koury, P. M., Izadifar, S., Dutta, S., Baxter, B., Schmid, A. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Understanding human-driven environmental impacts on microbial community distribution, abundance, and function remains a central challenge in microbial ecology. In particular, the drivers of temporal succession in community membership following perturbation remain unclear. The Great Salt Lake, Utah, bears clear hallmarks of human disturbance, including a rock-filled railroad causeway that sequestered its northern arm from freshwater river influx, leading to localized hypersalination and food web […]

by Rodriguez, S. M., Burgos-Andrade, K., Escares-Aguilera, V., Gutierrez, B., Valdivia, N. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Balancing sample sizes between infected and uninfected hosts is a common challenge in ecological parasitology, particularly when dealing with intermediate hosts involved in complex life cycles. In these life cycles, common in nature, the intermediate hosts accumulate parasites across their ontogeny, making it difficult to obtain similar numbers of naturally infected and uninfected individuals across full host body-size spectra. Here, we present a standardized and repeatable method to […]

by Hammer, R. A., Lee, M. R., Kimbrel, J., Stuart, R., Hawkes, C. V. on October 24, 2025 at 12:00 am

Studies of plant-associated microbial communities consistently indicate a role for classic assembly mechanisms, such as environmental and host filters, but often leave substantial unexplained variation. We propose that biotic interactions within microbial communities may help to fill this gap, specifically cross-kingdom interactions between fungi and bacteria, as these are increasingly found to be important to both assembly and function. We hypothesized that direct interactions between […]

by Arancibia, P. A., Abrego, N., Morin, P., Roslin, T., Ovaskainen, O. T. on October 23, 2025 at 12:00 am

Community dynamics are complex and thus challenging to infer from observational data alone. Experiments, with their ability to control variables and isolate mechanisms, are a powerful tool for uncovering the causal processes that drive community dynamics. They therefore allow us to move beyond correlations and to directly test theoretical predictions. Yet, because experiments are often logistically demanding and resource-intensive, they are less frequently employed than observational approaches […]

by Sato, D. X. on October 23, 2025 at 12:00 am

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is a pervasive urban driver that can reshape coastal communities, yet its links to genetic structure and behavior remain unclear. Here, we examined two closely related isopods, Ligia laticarpa and L. furcata, across Tokyo Bay along a gradient from brightly lit inner-bay shorelines to darker, vegetated outer-bay coasts. Genomic and mitochondrial evidence consistently identified clear genetic segregation between outer- and inner-bay populations corresponding to […]

by Pacheco-Labrador, J., Gomarasca, U., Pabon-Moreno, D. E., Li, W., Migliavacca, M., Jung, M., Duveiller, G. on October 23, 2025 at 12:00 am

The development of remote sensing methods to estimate plant functional diversity is limited by mismatches between ecology and remote sensing sampling schemes, and the limited representativeness of local field campaigns. The Biodiversity Observing System Simulation Experiment (BOSSE) provides a modeling framework for benchmarking new methodologies. We used BOSSE to simulate 180 different synthetic "Scenes" encompassing a two-year-long time series of plant trait maps and imagery of […]

by Ricci, F., Hutchinson, T., Leung, P. M., Nguyen-Dinh, T., Zeng, J., Jirapanjawat, T., Eate, V., Wong, W. W., Cook, P. L. M., Greening, C. on October 23, 2025 at 12:00 am

Chemosynthesis, an ancient metabolism that uses chemical compounds for energy and biomass generation, occurs across the ocean. Although chemosynthesis typically plays a subsidiary role to photosynthesis in the euphotic ocean, it is unclear whether it plays a more important role in aphotic habitats within this zone. Here, we compared the composition, function, and activity of sedimentary microorganisms within a marine cave at mesophotic depth, across a transect from the entrance to the interior. […]

by Giayetto, O., Quaglia, A. I. E., Mansilla, A. P., Nazar, F. N., Diaz, A. on October 22, 2025 at 12:00 am

The increasing threat of emerging vector-borne diseases, affecting both humans and wildlife, necessitates a nuanced understanding of the complex interactions among vectors, hosts, and pathogens. Focusing on West Nile Virus (WNV) and Saint Louis encephalitis Virus (SLEV) activity in avian communities of central and northern Argentina, this study delves into the intricate dynamics of exposure risk employing phylogenetic mixed models. Contrary to expectations, ecological traits displayed […]