Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Mineral stabilization of soil organic sulfur at the continental scale
Published: 2026-06-02
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science
Declining atmospheric sulfur (S) deposition makes S an emerging limiting macronutrient to plants, yet the stability and dynamics of soil organic S - the largest terrestrial S pool supplying plant-available sulfate via mineralization - remain unclear. Across North American soils, mineral-associated organic S (MAOS), a stabilized pool by mineral protection, dominates (61 ± 26% of the total soil S) [...]
Prioritizing Agricultural Flood Mitigation: A GeoAI-Driven Assessment of Susceptibility, Crop Exposure, and Socioeconomic Vulnerability
Published: 2026-05-31
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computational Engineering, Engineering, Life Sciences
Flooding is a recurrent hazard across the U.S. Midwest, yet frameworks integrating flood hazard, agricultural exposure, and socioeconomic vulnerability at the county scale remain limited. This study presents a GeoAI-driven agricultural flood risk assessment for all 99 counties in Iowa, combining machine learning-derived flood susceptibility with crop-specific economic exposure and socioeconomic [...]
Rapid quantification of fluorescent micro- and nanoplastics (≤2 μm) in soil
Published: 2026-05-27
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Life Sciences, Soil Science
Micro- and nanoplastics (MNP) pose an emerging threat to soil ecosystems, with particular concern for small MNP (≤10 µm). Although small fluorescent MNP are widely used to track MNP distribution and transport in aquatic environments and organisms, analyses of small fluorescent MNP in soil remain qualitative. Here, we present the first direct quantification approach for MNP ≤2 μm in soil using [...]
AI–Based Classification of Coffee Leaf Rust from Leaf Images in Smallholder Kenyan Farms
Published: 2026-05-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
Coffee leaf rust (CLR), caused by Hemileia vastatrix, remains a major threat to smallholder coffee production, yet access to timely and actionable disease risk information is limited. This study developed and compared machine learning models for predicting CLR incidence using plot-level data from 9,850 observations collected across six Arabica-producing counties in Kenya between 2018 and 2023. [...]
Global forest typology at 10-meter resolution for forest and land-use monitoring
Published: 2026-05-22
Subjects: Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Distinguishing forest types---primary, naturally regenerating, planted, and plantation forests---from agricultural tree crops and other land uses is essential for carbon accounting, biodiversity assessment, conservation planning, and supply-chain regulation. However, no existing global dataset resolves this typology at high spatial resolution. We present the Forest Typology (ForTy) v1 dataset, a [...]
Polygonal peatlands and treed plateau bog in Northwest Hudson Bay Lowlands, Canada: Holocene development and permafrost dynamics
Published: 2026-05-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
Since the retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, peatland development in the Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL) has been mainly influenced by postglacial isostatic rebound and climate. We studied the timing of permafrost aggradation and the successional trajectories of low Arctic and subarctic polygonal peatlands and a boreal plateau bog in Wapusk National Park (WNP), in northwestern HBL. We also explored [...]
Improving Learning and Science Outcomes in The Reservoir Observer Student Scientists (ROSS) Program Through Reflection and Skill Building Exercises
Published: 2026-05-12
Subjects: Education, Life Sciences
The Reservoir Observer Student Scientists (ROSS) program engages high school students in year-round water quality monitoring to detect and understand cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs). This place-based participatory science program combines hands-on sampling, data analysis, and reflective learning to foster scientific literacy and contribute to environmental research. A mid-year [...]
Antimicrobial Resistance – A Growing Global Groundwater Challenge
Published: 2026-05-08
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Antimicrobials are composed of medications such as antibiotics and antivirals which are widely used to ensure human and animal health. However, inappropriate use of antimicrobials is a major driver of antimicrobial resistance in groundwater or other aquatic systems. AMR arises from complex interactions between humans, animals, microbial organisms, medicines, wildlife and the environment. [...]
From Snapshot Maps to Continuous Monitoring of Global Forest Carbon at 100 m Resolution (2000–2025)
Published: 2026-05-08
Subjects: Life Sciences
Accurate, high-resolution estimation of forest aboveground biomass (AGB) is critical for quantifying terrestrial carbon stocks and informing climate mitigation policy, yet existing global products remain constrained by coarse spatial resolution and limited temporal coverage that obscure sub-national-scale disturbances (Avitabile et al., 2016). This study presents a wall-to-wall global AGB product [...]
Reduced geomagnetic shielding increased UV-B radiation at Earth’s surface during the Laschamps Event
Published: 2026-05-01
Subjects: Astrophysics and Astronomy, Atmospheric Sciences, Biochemistry, Biogeochemistry, Biology, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Life Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Life Sciences, Paleobiology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Geochemistry, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Statistics and Probability
Exposure to excess UV-B radiation can harm organisms through DNA damage and oxidative stress, and has likely been a key ecological and evolutionary driver throughout Earth’s history. Here, we show UV-B at Earth’s surface was significantly increased during the Laschamps Event, the last major geomagnetic excursion ca. 41ka BP. During the Laschamps, we find significant and prolonged (lasting [...]
Evaluating Sampling Bias and Model Uncertainty in Species Distribution Models of Marine Plankton Using Virtual Ecosystem Data
Published: 2026-04-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
Understanding the biodiversity and biogeography of plankton in the ocean is essential for predicting responses to environmental changes and informing ocean conservation and management strategies. Species distribution models (SDMs) are a pivotal tool in this regard. This study used data from a global marine ecosystem model as a testbed to assess the reliability of various SDMs, including [...]
Soil Remineralization in Agroecological Systems: A Critical Review
Published: 2026-04-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Soil degradation threatens global food security, human nutrition, biodiversity, water resources, and climate stability by depleting soil organic matter, exhausting nutrient reserves, and disrupting carbon and nitrogen cycles. Conventional input‑intensive agriculture has delivered yield gains but has also contributed to widespread micronutrient deficiencies, nutrient loading of waterways, soil [...]
Species specific mangrove habitat suitability and scenario dependent blue carbon modeling under uncertainty in Soc Trang Province, Vietnam
Published: 2026-04-26
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
This study develops an integrated framework for species specific mangrove habitat suitability and scenario dependent blue carbon planning in Soc Trang Province, Vietnam. The spatial model translates ecological zonation evidence for 11 mangrove taxa into local rules based on coastal distance and elevation, then tests those rules across 19 spatial scenarios. The carbon model carries the resulting [...]
The biodiversity paradox: declining conservation discourse amid ecological crisis in global urban policies
Published: 2026-04-24
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Despite escalating biodiversity crises, conservation discourse in urban environmental policies has declined, revealing a governance paradox in which ecological urgency is inversely correlated with policy representation. We analyzed 202 urban environmental policies from 85 countries spanning 1984-2025 using computational text analysis (LDA, NMF, hierarchical clustering). The results reveal an [...]
From sectoral silos to climate hegemony: analysis of global urban policies (1984-2025)
Published: 2026-04-23
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Contemporary urban environmental governance faces a paradox: while international frameworks advocate integration, climate discourse appears to subsume. This study analyzed 202 urban policies from 85 countries (1984-2025) using various methods, temporal discourse analysis, keyword co-occurrence networks, framing detection, and sentiment analysis. Policies accelerated exponentially, with 2010-2025 [...]