Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Interface Habitats: An Integrated Observing Strategy for Earth’s Most Dynamic and Consequential Aquatic Boundaries
Published: 2026-09-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Climate, Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
One line, no hard line breaks — safe to copy and paste: Interface Habitats – the dynamic boundaries where water meets land, the seafloor, the atmosphere, and ice, and where fronts, eddies, and filaments draw comparably sharp boundaries within the water itself – are among Earth's most productive, diverse, and rapidly changing ecosystems, and the site of most human interaction with aquatic [...]
Co-production as a mechanism for long-term Nature-based Solution viability: evidence from urban biofilters in an informal settlement of the Global South
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
Assessing the long-term viability of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in vulnerable urban contexts remains a major methodological challenge. Existing assessment frameworks primarily emphasize technical performance while giving limited attention to physical device survival and the continuity of the socio-technical arrangements required to sustain interventions over time. This study develops and [...]
From buffer-based tables to dynamic response curves for soil-specific lime requirement estimation using machine learning
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
Accurate estimation of lime requirement (LR) remains a major challenge in acid soils, as conventional buffer-based approaches, particularly the Shoemaker–McLean–Pratt (SMP) method, rely on a single equilibrium measurement and predefined target pH values, limiting their ability to capture the diversity of soil neutralization responses. This study evaluated whether machine-learning (ML) models can [...]
In-context learning for small-sample soil mid-infrared spectroscopy: evaluating TabPFN across an integrated soil-acidity panel
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
Soil acidity diagnosis requires several interdependent laboratory measurements, limiting throughput. Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy can estimate this panel from one scan, but practical use depends on robust calibration. Deep learning has surpassed conventional methods in many data-rich fields; however, adapted deep learning architectures such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are [...]
A response surface framework for persistence-aware lime requirement
Published: 2026-09-22
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
Conventional lime-requirement (LR) methods estimate the dose needed to attain a target soil pH, but do not indicate how long the correction remains acceptable during re-acidification. We tested whether repeated dose–response measurements could provide a persistence-aware LR. Single applications of calcium carbonate (CaCO{\! }_{3}) and calcium oxide (CaO) were evaluated in clay, sandy loam, and [...]
Incommensurate Global Cold-Seep Area Constructions and Their Consequences for an Iron-Bound Organic-Carbon Stock
Published: 2026-09-18
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Global biogeochemical inventories require a spatial domain that is commensurate with the measured concentration, sediment mass, and ecosystem state. We re-evaluate the area term used by Ye et al. (2026) to estimate 142–218 Tg C of iron-bound organic carbon (Fe-OC) in the upper 30 cm of mature cold-seep sediment. Two primary results emerge. First, Ye et al. state that cold seeps occupy less than [...]
Particle morphology and electrostatic screening shape salinity-dependent flocculation and settling of fine blasted tunnel sediments
Published: 2026-09-17
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
Rock-blasted fine-grained sediments generated during tunnel excavation may enter receiving waters that range from freshwater to marine conditions. Yet the combined roles of primary-particle morphology and salinity-dependent electrostatic interactions in their settling remain poorly understood. In this work, fine sediments from five Norwegian tunnel construction sites were investigated using [...]
Rapid declines in UK PM2.5 reflect coordinated reductions in regional nitrate and continental influence
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a major environmental risk factor for premature mortality globally. Although PM2.5 concentrations have declined across Europe since the 1990s, recent progress has shown signs of slowing, raising concerns over the achievability of increasingly stringent ambient air quality targets. Ambient PM2.5 concentrations across the UK underwent a rapid and sustained decline [...]
Coral connectivity: How biophysical modelling choices shape connectivity inference
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding coral connectivity is essential for predicting metapopulation dynamics and guiding restoration under accelerating climate change. Connectivity facilitates the exchange of organisms among reefs and can promote recovery following disturbance. Biophysical models are widely used to predict and explore coral connectivity; however, their estimates carry substantial uncertainty arising [...]
Inside the Extinction Envelope: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis of Paleoclimate Extinction Markers with Comments on the Necessary Array of Last-Threshold Interventions
Published: 2026-09-14
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Every element of the causal chain that produced the five largest mass extinctions of the last half-billion years is presently active in the Earth system. The rate of the modern perturbation exceeds every peer-reviewed paleoclimate reference case. A six-intervention portfolio, deployed together at wartime industrial scale beginning now, is the physically necessary and sufficient response. The [...]
Reconstructing annual 30 m forest aboveground biomass across Southwest China’s karst region from 1986 to 2024
Published: 2026-09-11
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Fine-resolution reconstruction of multi-decadal forest aboveground biomass (AGB) remains challenging in karst landscapes, where steep terrain, fragmented stands, and strong environmental gradients can limit the regional transferability of national and global products. We developed a regionally adapted two-stage framework to reconstruct annual 30 m forest AGB across Southwest China’s karst region [...]
From Equations to Geospatial Foundation models. What comes next for forest prediction?
Published: 2026-09-10
Subjects: Life Sciences
Predicting forest attributes and dynamics has long been a central objective of forestry, yet robust and transferable prediction remains challenging. Forest ecosystems are intrinsically heterogeneous, only partially observable, and shaped by interacting processes operating across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Over the past decades, predictive modelling has expanded across methodological [...]
Ocean warming and acidification alter larval development and swimming behavior in the Atlantic sea scallop, Placopecten magellanicus
Published: 2026-09-10
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Ocean warming (OW) and ocean acidification (OA) are expected to have wide-ranging consequences for populations in marine systems caused by organism-level responses at a range of life history stages, including early larval stages. The Atlantic sea scallop, Placopecten magellanicus, is an economically important bivalve species that may be vulnerable to ocean change, but larval responses remain [...]
From Heat Summation to Climate Adaptation: Lessons from 75 Years of the Winkler Index for Agroclimatic Metric Design
Published: 2026-09-08
Subjects: Life Sciences
Agroclimatic indices are foundational tools for matching crop cultivars to suitable climates, yet the accelerating pace of climate change is exposing the limits of indices built on mean conditions. The Winkler Index (WI) is a regional categorization system based on heat summation informed by wines made from grapes throughout California in the 1940s to 1960s, and it remains one of the most widely [...]
A Framework for Experiential Environmental Health Through Theater
Published: 2026-09-03
Subjects: Education, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Extreme weather events, including wildfires, are becoming more frequent, intense, and consequential for human health. Scientific advances have improved our ability to characterize hazards and the socioeconomic constraints shaping exposure, but these dimensions are not always integrated throughout the development of environmental health knowledge. Meanwhile, broader publics, although often not [...]