Preprint Feed – Ecology

by Alvarenga, D. O., Wynns, J. T., Nesme, J., Prieme, A., Rousk, K. on June 10, 2025 at 12:00 am

Associations between feather mosses and cyanobacteria are crucial sources of new biologically available nitrogen (N) in arctic and subarctic ecosystems. The physiology of both mosses and cyanobacteria is strongly influenced by environmental factors such as temperature and moisture, which directly affect N2 fixation rates. These associations may be threatened by climate change, since it leads to warmer and drier conditions in polar regions. In this study, we investigated the N2-fixing microbial […]

by Nakao, R., Inaba, M., Miyazono, S., Saito, M., Maruyama, K., Imamura, F., Akamatsu, Y. on June 9, 2025 at 12:00 am

Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is a cost-effective and non-invasive tool for species and biodiversity monitoring in aquatic environments. Passive eDNA sampling method is focused as a novel and alternative to conventional sampling methods, such as water filtration. In this study, we examined the efficacy of the sponge skeleton as an eDNA passive sampler for the freshwater fish monitoring tool. We compared the performance of passive sampling method with standard water filtration in the river […]

by Strannegard, C., Palak, M., Emgsner, N., Stocco, A., Antonelli, A., Silvestro, D. on June 9, 2025 at 12:00 am

Twin models of natural ecosystems hold great promise for informing real-world decisions on sustainable land use and biodiversity conservation. However, existing simulations of animal behavior often rely on manually crafted rules, limiting their scalability and practical utility. Here, we present a flexible and scalable agent-based modeling approach that uses reinforcement learning—instead of hand-coded rules—to simulate animal behavior. We validate this approach across ten alpine ecosystems […]

by Antoł, W., Surmacz, B., Ostap-Chec, M., Stec, D., Miler, K. on June 9, 2025 at 12:00 am

Honeybees encounter low environmental doses of ethanol, primarily through fermenting nectar, which can have both beneficial and detrimental effects on their functioning. Yet, ethanol traces can also be detected in the crop of caged bees with no access to environmental food sources. This raises the possibility that endogenous ethanol accumulation could occur under restricted conditions, with microbial contributions as a potential mechanism. The crop microbiota, although less diverse than that in […]

by Subramanian, S. K., Bolnick, D. I. on June 9, 2025 at 12:00 am

Eco-evolutionary theory predicts that local adaptation should influence community assembly and performance, yet empirical tests of these predictions remain limited, particularly at microgeographic scales where gene flow is expected to constrain adaptation. Using yeast communities in apple orchards as a model system, we tested whether local adaptation of a dominant species affects community composition and performance through reciprocal transplant experiments across eight Connecticut orchards […]

by Rivera-Ruiz, D. A., Flores-Martinez, J. J., Rosales, C., Falcon, L. I., Solano de la Cruz, M. T., Herrera M., L. G. on June 8, 2025 at 12:00 am

Immunological variations of bats throughout their life cycle represent an underexplored and controversial topic that has great potential for understanding their immunology. This gap is particularly large regarding the state of immunity during early life and migration, and how different immune components interact with each other. In this study, the partial migratory long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) was used as a model to assess the state of acquired humoral immunity (total IgG […]

by Wakefield, E. D., McClymont, E. L., Descamps, S., Grecian, W. J., Honan, E. M., Rix, A. S., Robert, H., Sandoy Brathen, V., Phillips, R. A. on June 8, 2025 at 12:00 am

BackgroundBreeding pelagic seabirds feed over wide areas. Their diet and space use can therefore provide proxies for otherwise be difficult to observe environmental conditions but interpretation of these proxies requires knowledge of foraging range. Antarctic sea ice regulates global climate, but a paucity of data on its past extent causes uncertainty in climate reconstruction and prediction. Deposits of stomach oils, produced defensively by snow petrels Pagodroma nivea (near-obligate sea-ice […]

by Gutierrez, A. P., Ponti, L., Neuenschwander, P., Yaninek, J. S., Baumgärtner, J. U., Herren, H. R. on June 8, 2025 at 12:00 am

The success rate of biological control programs against invasive species is low because the efficacy of released natural enemies is unknown. Deconstruction of the successful biological control of the highly destructive cassava mealybug (CM) and cassava green mite (CGM) in Africa is used to show how ex ante pre-release analyses of natural enemies can increase the success rate. A meta-population tri-trophic physiologically based demographic model (PBDM) of the cassava system accurately predicted […]

by Devi, S. M., Managave, S., Jathar, G., Davande, S. on June 8, 2025 at 12:00 am

Reforestation in the tropics, one of the most deforested regions, can help mitigate climate change and conserve biodiversity. Its effective implementation requires assessing suitability of a given site for tree growth. By analyzing tree cover (TC) in 127 protected areas across the tropics, we show that southeast and northeast-facing slopes are least favorable for tree growth in the Northern and Southern tropics, respectively. In contrast, northwest (north-, northwest, and west-facing) and […]

by Lee, L. G., Pasquarella, V. J., Glass, B., Morreale, L. L., Chung, N., Gao, X., Thompson, J. on June 6, 2025 at 12:00 am

Recent advances in remote sensing, data availability, and cloud-based computing have led to a rapid expansion of publicly accessible datasets characterizing forest cover and land use. These datasets are widely used in ecological research, natural resource management, and policymaking. However, the sheer number of available products–and the often-subtle differences among them–pose significant challenges for users seeking the most appropriate dataset for their specific objectives. Here, we […]

by Paul, P., Pradhan, P. on June 6, 2025 at 12:00 am

Equitable sharing of benefits from the commercial use of biological resources is a cornerstone of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This principle is pivotal in advancing the other two CBD objectives: conserving biological diversity and its sustainable use. India, as a CBD signatory, enacted the Biological Diversity Act in 2002 (amended in 2023) and established a three-tiered implementation system involving the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs), […]

by Bevan, P., Sethi, S. S., Lawson, J., Banks-Leite, C., Kovac, M., Picinali, L. on June 6, 2025 at 12:00 am

Terrestrial remote sensing approaches, such as acoustic monitoring, deliver finely resolved and reliable biodiversity data. However, the scalability of surveys is often limited by the effort, time and cost needed to deploy, maintain and retrieve sensors. Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) are emerging as a promising tool for fully autonomous data collection, but there is considerable scope for their further use in ecology. In this study, we explored whether a novel approach […]

by Valim, H. F., Schmitt, I., Otte, J. on June 6, 2025 at 12:00 am

In the lichen symbiosis, the fungal and algal partners constitute a closely integrated system. The combination of fungal and algal partners changes along climate gradients in many species, and is expected to be adaptive. However, the functional mechanisms behind this symbiosis-mediated environmental adaptation are unknown. We investigate which transcriptional profiles are associated with specific fungal-algal symbiont pairings found in lichens from high elevation (cold temperate) and low […]

by Pipins, S., Bohm, M., Bland, L., Crandall, K. A., Hossain, M. A., Rosindell, J., Gumbs, R. on June 6, 2025 at 12:00 am

Crayfish are an ancient clade of freshwater decapods that play vital and diverse ecological roles in the freshwater systems that they inhabit. One third of assessed crayfish species are threatened with extinction and 87% are highly sensitive to climate change. However, the extent to which the evolutionary history of crayfish is threatened, especially by climate change, remains unclear. To address this, we produced a phylogenetically-informed species prioritisation for the conservation of […]

by Knuese, C., Cardenas-Canales, E. M., McDevitt-Galles, T., Ramirez-Martinez, M. M., Limonta, D., Powers, L. E., Walsh, D. P., Streicker, D. G., Osorio, J. E., Zamanian, M., Rocke, T. E. on June 6, 2025 at 12:00 am

Rabies vaccination of vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) has been proposed as a superior control method to culling but has yet to be implemented. Success of rabies vaccination depends on a topical vehicle that spreads through a bat colony via allogrooming while additionally preserving vaccine immunogenicity. This work describes the in vitro and in vivo optimization of a new orotopical gel for rabies vaccine delivery to vampire bats. Autonomous transferability of our carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) […]

by Kler-Lago, A., Kiefer, K., Strader, M., Baptista Nobre, T., Hendricks, S., Richter, C., Wild, C., Quigley, K. on June 6, 2025 at 12:00 am

Coral reefs globally are experiencing escalating mass bleaching and mortality. Reefs along the western Indian Ocean have been relatively unimpacted. We assessed heat tolerance baselines in two widespread reef-building Acropora species and used selective breeding from two thermally distinct (present day and stress histories) northern (Mean Monthly Maximum 27.9 {degrees}C) and southern (26.6 {degrees}C) reefs along the Ningaloo World Heritage Reef. Fitness responses were measured in control and […]

by Tanaka, H., Doi, H., Iritani, R. on June 6, 2025 at 12:00 am

Climate change imposes multiple interacting stressors on ocean ecosystems. The Southern Ocean is among the regions where these impacts are particularly pronounced. Phytoplankton, which perform the bulk of primary production, both maintain the Antarctic marine food web and contribute to the role of the Southern Ocean as the largest oceanic sink for atmospheric CO2. Previous observational and modeling studies have revealed certain drivers-phytoplankton relationships and highlighted the important […]

by Wu, F., Valverde-Cantillo, V., Durr, C., Espinoza, M., Lowe, C., Heidemeyer, m., Spotila, J. R., Paladino, F. on June 6, 2025 at 12:00 am

Understanding how threatened marine species use coastal areas and the extent of connectivity across different spatial and temporal scales is important for identifying critical habitats that can enhance conservation efforts in other regions of their distribution. In this study, we investigated the site fidelity and habitat use of juvenile yellow morphotype green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the Gulf of Santa Elena, north Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Fifteen juvenile green sea turtles (49 – 83 […]

by Ravindran, S., Corripio-Miyar, Y., Pick, J. L., Bal, X., Pilkington, J. G., Pemberton, J. M., Nussey, D. H., Froy, H. on June 5, 2025 at 12:00 am

1. Understanding the physiological mechanisms underpinning plasticity in life-history traits can help us predict individual responses to environmental variability and understand how diverse life-history strategies evolve to be shaped by ecological processes. 2. The hormone insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is a key player in the insulin/IGF-1 signaling (IIS) pathway. This nutrient-sensing pathway responds to diverse environmental cues including food availability and has been shown to […]

by Sun, T. A., Kiciatovas, D., Aapalampi, I.-K., Kuosmanen, T., Hiltunen, T., Mustonen, V. on June 4, 2025 at 12:00 am

Microbial growth is intimately dependent on the resources that cells find in their environment. While resource consumption in simple systems is well understood in theory, connecting mathematical models with empirical observations in more complex environments remains difficult. To address this, we measure bacterial growth across various concentrations of a complex growth medium and analyse the data with the assumption that populations consume resources at a constant rate. This approach […]

by Serrana, J. M., Dessirier, B., Nascimento, F. J. A., Broman, E., Posselt, M. on June 4, 2025 at 12:00 am

BackgroundThe Baltic Sea receives petroleum hydrocarbons from various point sources. The degradation of these contaminants in the environment is typically facilitated by a variety of microorganisms that possess a range of genes and metabolic functions related to the degradation of various hydrocarbon substrates. However, our understanding of natural attenuation and the microbial capacity to degrade these contaminants within the Baltic Sea ecosystem remains limited. In this study, we compiled […]

by Schaal, K. A., Wang, Y.-J., Nauta, J., Pilosof, S. A., De Domenico, M., Hall, J. P. on June 3, 2025 at 12:00 am

Microbial communities are shaped by complex forces, including interspecies interactions and the effects of mobile genetic elements such as plasmids. How these forces interact to affect community responses to environmental perturbations remains unclear, particularly considering the qualitatively different natures of competitive and plasmid transfer interactions. We investigated the role of bacterial and plasmid interaction networks in community responses to single and multiple environmental […]

by Patterson, G., Goodfellow, C. K., Ting, N., Kern, A. D., Ralph, P. L. on June 3, 2025 at 12:00 am

Estimating the size of wild populations is a critical priority for ecologists and conservation biologists, but tools to do so are often labor intensive and expensive. A promising set of newer approaches are based on genetic data, which can be cheaper to obtain and less invasive than information from more direct observation. One of these approaches is close-kin mark-recapture (CKMR), a type of method that uses genetic data to identify kin pairs and estimates population size from these pairs. […]

by Meyer, K. M., Lindow, S. E. on June 3, 2025 at 12:00 am

Non-crop plants surrounding large plantings of agricultural crops can provide numerous ecological services to adjacent agricultural plants but have rarely been considered as a source of microorganisms during the early stages of their growth. In this study we test whether agricultural plants in close proximity to surrounding woodland habitat fragments develop a denser microbiome than plants farther away, and whether the composition of the crop microbiomes more closely resembles the composition […]

by Gwinner, M., Haslob, H., Neumann, H., Khodami, S., Schupp, P. J., Bonthond, G. on June 2, 2025 at 12:00 am

The intestinal microbiota of fishes support digestion, nutrient uptake and play an important role in the immune system, development and reproduction. Flatfish live in close contact with the seafloor, and are particularly exposed to anthropogenic disturbances such as bottom trawling. Bottom trawling impacts the ecosystem in various ways and it recent evidence indicates that the microbial composition and diversity in marine sediments varies with fishing intensity. It is presently unknown whether […]

by P, S. M., Pankaj, M. on June 2, 2025 at 12:00 am

AbstractUnderstanding bird diversity across land use and land cover (LULC) in fragmented landscapes is essential for effective conservation planning in human-modified landscapes. Using one year of eBird data from 2023, this study assessed bird species richness, diversity indices, and feeding guild composition across ten LULC classes in Wayanad, southern India. We employed rarefaction methods to estimate effort-adjusted species richness due to unequal sampling effort across classes, and analysed […]

by Lamas, Z., Rinkevich, F., Garavito, A., Shaulis, A., Boncristiani, D., Hill, E., Chen, Y. P., Evans, J. D. on June 1, 2025 at 12:00 am

Commercial beekeepers in the US reported severe colony losses early in 2025, as colonies were being staged for their critical role in the almond pollination season in California. Average reported losses since the preceding spring exceeded 60%, with substantial variation among operations. Many colonies were still actively collapsing in January, 2025, when pooled and individual samples were collected then screened for levels of known honey bee pathogens and parasites. Deformed wing virus strains […]

by Inoue, Y., Miyata, K., Yamane, M., Honda, H. on June 1, 2025 at 12:00 am

To achieve the current Nature Positive goals, it is important to identify the effects of chemicals on ecosystems and strategically reduce their risks. We therefore estimated the safe concentration (SC) of linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) by investigating the relationship between benthic communities detected via environmental RNA (eRNA) and environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding and the water quality in a river contaminated with LAS. Non-metric multidimensional scaling of benthic communities […]

by Hinrichsen, R. A. on June 1, 2025 at 12:00 am

O_LIPopulations are at the mercy of random disturbances large and small and rarely, if ever, converge on predicted long-term behaviours. Therefore, when using matrix population models, ecologists study the dynamics of populations that depart from stable distributions. Necessary for such studies are indices that gauge transient dynamics, which are short-term population fluctuations away from asymptotic trajectories. Conventional indices of transient dynamics present three core challenges: they […]

by Morris, C., Kirkman, K. on June 1, 2025 at 12:00 am

Two of the worlds oldest grassland experiments began in 1950-51 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The Burning and Mowing Trial (BMT) tests how summer mowing and dormant-season burning or mowing regimes affect mesic grassland. The Veld Fertiliser Trial (VFT) examines how nitrogen, phosphorus fertilisers and lime influence grassland productivity, composition, and diversity. Seventy-five years later, their impact was assessed through research output and value for education and networking. All […]