The first global-scale assessment of the role ecosystems play in providing sanitation finds that nature provides at least 18% of sanitation services in 48 cities worldwide, according to researchers in the United Kingdom and India.
Around the world, coral reefs are under pressure from a host of stressors, including global warming, pollution, and disease events. Now, two leading groups – Nova Southeastern University and the Coral Restoration Foundation™ – are teaming up to establish a new “coral ark” for critically endangered coral species where genetically diverse corals will be housed to bank and protect their important genetic diversity.
Love them or hate them, there’s no doubt the European Starling is a wildly successful bird. A new study from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology examines this non-native species from the inside out to learn what exactly happened at the genetic level as the starling population exploded and spread all across North America?
It's clear that rising greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver of global warming.
Under increasing global warming, tropical fish are escaping warmer seas by extending their habitat ranges towards more temperate waters. But a new study shows that the ocean acidification predicted under continuing high CO2 emissions may make cooler, temperate waters less welcoming.
A new study in Frontiers in Marine Science provides a first-of-its-kind evaluation of which regions of southern European seas are in the most need of fishing restrictions.
In a study published today in Current Biology, Canadian biology professors Simon Joly and Daniel Schoen show that cleistogamy, as this type of self-pollination is known, is strongly associated with bilaterally symmetric flowers, such as orchids, that have a single plane of symmetry instead of multiple ones.
According to new findings by researcher's at Israel's Technion, the senses -- mainly smell and touch -- are vital in the process that allows us to relax and enjoy nature.
Bringing in individuals from other populations can help maintain genetic diversity--and an isolated population's ability to reproduce and survive.
A new University of Washington paper published Jan. 11 in Nature Sustainability quantifies the tradeoffs between hydroelectric generation capacity and the impacts on river connectivity for thousands of current and projected future dams across Brazil. The findings confirm that small hydropower plants are far more responsible for river fragmentation than their larger counterparts due to their prevalence and distribution.
A study has revealed for the first time the ancient origins of one of the world’s most important ecosystems by unlocking the mechanism which determined the evolution of its mountains and how they shaped the weather there as well as its flora and fauna.
Some flowers use a clever strategy to ensure effective pollination by bees, doling out pollen gradually from two different sets of anthers
Living near an abundance of green vegetation can offset the negative effects of air pollution on blood vessel health. The first-of-its-kind study is published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
The Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University in collaboration with Chula Unisearch, the Plant Genetic Conservation Project under the Royal Initiative of Her Royal Highness (HRH) Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn and the Naval Special Warfare Command, Royal Thai Navy, jointly publicized the discovery of the world’s rare and newly discovered species of soft coral. The discovery indicates the abundance and ecological diversity of the Thai seas and one of the new species has received HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s gracious permission to be named “Sirindhornae“. The other was named “Cornigera“. The discovery and names of the two new soft coral species found in the Thai seas have been published in the international research journal, Zootaxa, in 2020.
A group of scientists led by the American Museum of Natural History and Bat Conservation International have discovered a new species of a striking orange and black bat in a mountain range in West Africa.
New research has unlocked the mystery of how the Galápagos Islands, a rocky, volcanic outcrop, with only modest rainfall and vegetation, is able to sustain its unique wildlife habitats.
A new study introduces a classification called Resistance-Resilience-Transformation (RRT) that enables the assessment of whether and to what extent a management shift toward transformative action is occurring in conservation.
Close to 5,700 lakes in the Northern Hemisphere may permanently lose ice cover this century, 179 of them in the next decade, at current greenhouse gas emissions, despite a possible polar vortex this year, researchers at York University have found.
A new study by researchers at the University of Chicago and the City College of New York (CCNY) has identified a unique, genetic “mimicry switch” that determines whether or not male and female Elymnias hypermnestra palmflies mimic the same or different species of butterflies.
After eons of landing on the legs and arms of humans and animals, ticks have landed smack-dab in the middle of the research interests of University of Nebraska–Lincoln master’s student Dominic Cristiano.
Michigan State University is leading a global research effort to offer the first worldwide view of how climate change could affect water availability and drought severity in the decades to come. By the late 21st century, global land area and population facing extreme droughts could more than double — increasing from 3% during 1976-2005 to 7%-8%, according to Yadu Pokhrel, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in MSU’s College of Engineering, and lead author of the research published in Nature Climate Change.
Changes in daylength are a well-established annual timing cue for animal behavior and physiology. An international collaboration of scientists led by Kristin Tessmar-Raible at the Max Perutz Labs, a joint venture of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, now shows that, in addition to daylength, marine bristle worms sense seasonal intensity changes of UVA/deep violet light to adjust the levels of important neurohormones and their behavior.
How the larvae of colorful clownfish that live among coral reefs in the Philippines are dispersed varies widely, depending on the year and seasons – a Rutgers-led finding that could help scientists improve conservation of species. Right after most coral reef fish hatch, they join a swirling sea of plankton as tiny, transparent larvae. Then currents, winds and waves disperse them, frequently to different reefs.
Bird diets provide a real treasure for research into the distribution and conservation of their prey, such as overlooked and rare bush-cricket species, point out scientists after studying the diet of the Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) in southeastern Bulgaria.
Deforestation dropped by 18 percent in two years in African countries where organizations subscribed to receive warnings from a new service using satellites to detect decreases in forest cover in the tropics.
Columbia Engineering study is the first to show the importance of long-term soil moisture changes and associated soil moisture-atmosphere feedbacks in future predictions of water availability in drylands. The researchers identified a long-term soil moisture regulation of atmospheric circulation and moisture transport that largely ameliorates the potential decline of future water availability in drylands, beyond that expected in the absence of soil moisture feedbacks.
A team of researchers -- including engineers from Iowa State University -- have used transmission electron microscopy and 3D computational modeling to quantify and visualize why some desalination membranes work better than others.
New research produced jointly by The Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS), Faculty of Science, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), published recently in the scientific journal Restoration Ecology, shows the enormous potential of restoring lost oyster reefs, bringing significant environmental benefits.
Big bumblebees take time to learn the locations of the best flowers, new research shows.
To be fair, the newly described Waray Dwarf Burrowing Snake (Levitonius mirus) is pretty great at hiding
How can conifers that are used for example as Christmas trees keep their green needles over the boreal winter when most trees shed their leaves?
The Earth’s soils contain more than three times the amount of carbon than is found in the atmosphere, but the processes that bind carbon in the soil are still not well understood.
An international team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhejiang A & F University and the University of Eastern Finland have found that regardless of whether flowering or leaf unfolding occurred first in a species, the first event advanced more than the second over the last seven decades.
A new study led by researchers in the Geography Department at Swansea University reveals the extreme scale of loss and fragmentation of tropical forests, which once covered much of the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Armstrong studied the microscopic communities living within the water samples to understand more about water quality and primary production.
The research will help provide information on actions that could be taken to save the Mariana fruit bat, which faces extinction.
What does it take to get some people to go outside and experience nature? For some urban dwellers, it took the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers say. The new study finds that 26% of people visiting parks during early months of the COVID-19 pandemic had rarely – or never – visited nature in the previous year. The study is one of the first to explore how COVID-19 has changed Americans’ relationship with nature. The research will appear in PLOS ONE journal.
Study examines the positive effects of wetlands on water quality and the potential for using wetland restoration as a key strategy for improving water quality, particularly in the Mississippi River Basin and Gulf of Mexico regions
One of the first studies on Americans' relationship with nature during COVID finds significant increases in outdoor activity, especially among women. Women were 1.7 (gardening) to 2.9 (walking) times more likely to report increasing their activity compared to men. In general, outdoor activities seeing the largest increases were: watching wildlife, gardening, photos or art in nature, relaxing alone outside, and walking.
A PNNL-led study is noting a strategic approach is needed for advancing effective large-scale ecosystem restoration outcomes to maximize both ecological and economic benefits.
Scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Colorado State University used observations from the Lab’s eBird citizen-science program to estimate the seasonal species richness of nocturnally migrating passerines within 333 well surveyed urban areas in the contiguous U.S. “Richness” is defined as the number of different species in an area.
UC San Diego-led research is providing new details about honey bees and their defenses against preying hornets. Using a common iPad, James Nieh and his colleagues conducted the first study that demonstrates that a contagious warning signal counters fake news in social insects.
WCS will hold a media briefing to demonstrate a new groundbreaking, publicly available index that measures ecological integrity for all the world’s forests: the Forest Landscape Integrity Index.
Monash University geologists have shed new light on the early history of the Earth through their discovery that continents were weak and prone to destruction in their infancy.
A new report called Innovative Finance for Conservation: Roles for Ecologists and Practitioners, explores how private investment could boost conservation in a big way.
There's been a huge bump in the number of people connecting with birds and nature as people stuck close to home during this past year, and the trend is continuing. The perfect gift for new—and veteran—birdwatchers is the gift of knowledge. There's so much to learn about birds! Below are holiday gift ideas that are meaningful and environmentally friendly—and your purchase supports the nonprofit conservation work at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
It will come as no surprise to anyone living in Phoenix, Arizona, that 2020 has been a record-breaking year for high temperatures.
Is the Amazon rainforest as sensitive to water stress as what the current models have been showing? Columbia Engineering researchers found that the models have been largely over-estimating water stress in tropical forests. While models show that increases in air dryness greatly diminish photosynthesis rates in certain regions of the Amazon rainforest, observational data results show the opposite: in certain very wet regions, the forests instead even increase photosynthesis rates in response to drier air.
When food is scarce, monarch butterfly caterpillars go from peaceful feeders to aggressive fighters. The results look something like a combination of boxing and “bumper” cars. The less food, the more likely caterpillars were to try to head-butt each other out of the way to get their fill, lunging and knocking aside other caterpillars to ensure their own survival. And, they are most aggressive right before the final stages of their metamorphosis.
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