368 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.
By integrating field naturalism with Bayesian modeling across a broad Himalayan gradient, this study demonstrates that the interaction between frost events and fog probability, rather than altitude alone, is the primary driver shaping vegetation growth form partitioning and species distribution.
The paper introduces DATRASextra, an open-source R package designed to streamline the processing, harmonization, and analysis of ICES DATRAS bottom-trawl survey data through modular, reproducible workflows.
Using high-frequency in situ imaging to overcome sampling limitations, this study reveals that mixotrophic Rhizaria protists exhibit complex ecological behaviors, including superior control over their vertical position and orientation in the water column compared to non-mixotrophic taxa, and likely employ active buoyancy control during symbiont acquisition.
This study demonstrates that heatwaves reduce parasitism and increase survival in winter-adapted mosquito populations across diverse geographic regions by enabling larvae to evade infection, with effects that are consistent across populations and predictable from fundamental thermal performance curves rather than local adaptation.
This study demonstrates that diet specialization in Norwegian raptors drives distinct reproductive strategies and foraging efficiencies, where specialists generally exhibit higher reproductive output and outcompete generalists unless the latter can access unique prey resources.
This study reveals that while rice field harvesting and ploughing events trigger short-term surges in waterbird numbers due to increased food availability, these gatherings do not enhance individual foraging performance or reduce vigilance, suggesting birds are attracted by the perception of a feast through local enhancement rather than actual foraging benefits.
This global meta-analysis demonstrates that biochar amendments consistently reduce soil thermal conductivity, diffusivity, and volumetric heat capacity, primarily driven by changes in bulk density and modulated by application rate and soil texture, highlighting the need to integrate these intrinsic thermal property shifts into land-surface models.
This study demonstrates that incorporating individual heterogeneity in invasive American mink residency status reveals that targeted removal of resident individuals, rather than blanket population control, is more effective for protecting native water voles, as the spatial scale of predation impact varies significantly between resident and transient predators.
This study demonstrates that spatiotemporal variations in salmon-derived nutrient inputs restructure riparian fungal communities by differentially affecting saprotrophs and ectomycorrhizal fungi, highlighting the complex relationship between nutrient dynamics, fungal functional traits, and taxonomic diversity.
By analyzing otolith microchemistry from over 3,600 European eels, this study reveals high individual variation in habitat use along a salinity gradient, identifying distinct life-history strategies including coastal residency and migration, which underscores the critical need to incorporate coastal habitats into conservation and population management efforts for this critically endangered species.