312 papers
Ecology explores the intricate relationships between living organisms and their environments, revealing how life adapts, interacts, and sustains itself across the planet. From microscopic soil communities to vast migratory patterns, this field examines the delicate balance that keeps ecosystems functioning and resilient. Understanding these connections is vital for addressing urgent challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss.
At Gist.Science, we make the latest research from bioRxiv accessible to everyone. We process every new preprint in this category as it appears, offering both clear plain-language explanations and detailed technical summaries to suit every reader. This approach ensures that groundbreaking findings in ecological science are not locked behind complex terminology but are available for immediate understanding and discussion.
Below are the latest papers in ecology, curated to help you stay informed about the evolving story of life on Earth.
This study demonstrates that biodiversity in dense Gothenburg cities can be maintained by prioritizing local natural habitat areas and ensuring connectivity to surrounding green spaces, even though overall species richness differs significantly from reference areas.
A greenhouse experiment comparing the invasive *Alternanthera philoxeroides* and its native congener *A. sessilis* reveals that the invasive species exhibits reduced kin competition and higher biomass in kin groups, whereas the native species shows stronger kin competition, suggesting that diminished competition among clones may facilitate the spread of the invasive plant.
This paper introduces a formal framework for causal effect transportability in ecology, utilizing structural causal models and accessible R software to enable the valid transfer of causal findings from source to target populations, as demonstrated by a case study on tree canopy cover and dissolved oxygen that shows transported estimates outperform naive model applications.
The NordicTraits dataset presents the first comprehensive, imputed, and openly available resource of 44 functional traits for 3,099 native vascular plant species across the Nordic countries, enabling robust trait-based ecological research on biodiversity and climate change responses in diverse northern European ecosystems.
This study utilizes a literature review and a Generic Impact Scoring System to identify and quantify 200 human-wildlife conflicts involving 48 British terrestrial mammal species, revealing that while economic and disease-related conflicts are significant, informed decision-making requires balancing these costs with the intrinsic value of wildlife to promote coexistence rather than solely focusing on conflict resolution.
This study demonstrates that in coastal guava agroforestry systems in Odisha, India, selecting the superior 'Utkal Madhuri' brinjal genotype combined with an optimized nutrient regime (200:50:50 kg ha⁻¹ N:P₂O₅:K₂O) significantly maximizes carbon sequestration and restores soil fertility through a critical genotype-nutrient interaction.
This study demonstrates that while both Gradient Forest and Canonical Correlation Analysis methods yield spatially congruent genomic offset predictions validated by phenotypic traits in perennial ryegrass, the non-linear Gradient Forest approach is more robust to variations in sample size and geographic distribution, offering practical guidance for designing climate maladaptation assessments.
The paper introduces ecoTolerance, an open-source R package that calculates Road Tolerance Index (RTI) and Human-Footprint Tolerance Index (HFTI) metrics to automate the assessment of wildlife species' tolerance to human pressures, thereby aiding in the identification of vulnerable species for conservation planning.
This study demonstrates that autonomous video-acoustic monitoring in a Greenlandic glacial fjord effectively characterizes a turbulent, particle-rich seafloor environment and documents diverse biodiversity, including hyperbenthos, backward-swimming fish, and narwhals.
This study demonstrates that under stressful mean temperatures, the impact of thermal variability on host-parasite interactions is not uniform but depends on specific combinations of heatwave duration, predictability, and parasite identity, suggesting that increasing climatic variability will reshape disease outcomes in complex, species-specific ways.