The claim that adult trees preferentially send resources or “warning signals” of insect damage to young trees through common mycorrhizal networks (CMNs), is not backed up by a single peer-reviewed, published field study.
Wetlands are among the most threatened ecosystems in the world. A new study, published in Nature, has found that the loss of wetland areas around the globe since 1700 has likely been overestimated.
Attempts to discredit human-caused climate change by touting graphs of prehistoric atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature changes are not something new. Peter Clack has once again tried to make a point that current atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are comparatively low compared to past eras. But just because we're in an advantageous era compared to past eras, it does not negate the cause for alarm concerning our current warming trend.
In tropical mountains, the number of insects declines with increasing altitude. This intensifies in high altitudes competition between plant species that specialize in catching insects as an important source of nutrients.
The speed of environmental change is very challenging for wild organisms. When exposed to a new environment individual plants and animals can potentially adjust their biology to better cope with new pressures they are exposed to - this is known as phenotypic plasticity.
The Amazon rainforest has been degraded by a much greater extent than scientists previously believed with more than a third of remaining forest affected by humans, according to a new study published on January 27 in the journal Science.
Evolution has occurred more rapidly than previously thought in the Chesapeake Bay wetlands, which may decrease the chance that coastal marshes can withstand future sea level rise, researchers at the University of Notre Dame and collaborators demonstrated in a recent publication in Science.
Nutrients from salmon carcasses can substantively alter the growth and reproduction of plant species in the surrounding habitat, and even cause some flowers to grow bigger and more plentiful, SFU researchers have found.
Two sister species of near-primate, called “primatomorphans,” dating back about 52 million years have been identified by researchers at the University of Kansas as the oldest to have dwelled north of the Arctic Circle.
Recent experiments have shown that the loss of species from a plant community can reduce ecosystem functions and services such as productivity, carbon storage and soil health.
Careful siting of renewable energy development seems to play a key role in minimizing impacts to wildlife, but this requires detailed knowledge of where animals breed, winter, and migrate. To address this need, BRI established a wildlife and renewable energy program in 2009, which has evolved over the past 12 years into BRI’s Center for Research on Offshore Wind and the Environment (CROWE).
BRI’s field biologists seek out opportunities that put them into close contact with the natural world. In fact, those encounters captivate, awaken, and spark their motivation and passion.
Julia Gulka tackles emerging environmental issues in an office surrounded by photographs, illustrations, and personal watercolor paintings of the birds she studies and the places she has traveled.
On the remote island of Rota, a tiny dot in the vastness of Oceania, a group of field biologists from distant places join forces each year to study threatened and endangered species of bats, indigenous crows, and other wildlife. In 2017, New Zealand native and bat specialist Josh Guilbert started full-time research on the “Friendly Island.” That first year, he met two seasonal volunteers who had previously worked at a wildlife research group in Maine—Biodiversity Research Institute.
Climate change and human activities strongly influence forests, but researchers have not fully understood the pervasiveness of these stressors and how they will shape future forest structure.
Environmental DNA analysis of microbial communities can help us understand how a particular region’s water cycle works. Basel hydrogeologist Oliver Schilling recently used this method to examine the water cycle on Mount Fuji.
The red junglefowl – the wild ancestor of the chicken – is losing its genetic diversity by interbreeding with domesticated birds, according to a new study led by Frank Rheindt of the National University of Singapore published January 19 in the journal PLOS Genetics.
A temperature reconstruction from ice cores of the past 1,000 years reveals that today’s warming in central-north Greenland is surprisingly pronounced.
Frequent visits to urban green spaces, such as parks and community gardens in Finland, rather than the amount, or views of them from home, may be linked to lower use of certain prescription meds, suggests research published online in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
Tropical forests are crucial for sucking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But they’re also subject to intense storms that can cause “windthrow” – the uprooting or breaking of trees. A new study finds that more extreme thunderstorms from climate change will likely cause a greater number of large windthrow events in the Amazon, which could impact the rainforest's ability to serve as a carbon sink.
Michigan State University helped lead an international team of researchers that showed which undeveloped land areas of North America have the most potential to support biodiversity in a warming climate.
A new study analyzed the value of establishing ecological corridors for large mammals between Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks and between Mount Rainier and North Cascades National Parks. These corridors would enlarge populations and species to shift their geographic ranges more readily in response to climate change.
A new study by a team of international scientists including Liliana M. Dávalos, PhD, from Stony Brook University, reveals that it would take three million years to recover the number of species that went extinct from human activity on Madagascar. Their findings are published in Nature Communications.
A new study led by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) has shown that ecosystems in western parts of southeastern Australia – including western Victoria and western Tasmania – may be most at risk of feeling the impacts of climate change in the coming decades.
How will our glaciers change during the 21st century? In a new study whose findings are published in Science (5 January), an international team1, including scientists from the CNRS and Université Toulouse III–Paul Sabatier, has demonstrated a loss of glacial mass greater than earlier projected—and specifically, 11% to 44% higher than estimates used in the most recent IPCC report.
An international study led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) stresses the need to apply a biocultural approach in nature conservation programs.
You've probably felt it yourself at some point.
After a walk in the woods, your shoulders drop several notches. Your heart stopped pounding. Your thoughts flowed a little more calmly.
Ocean warming is driving an increase in the frequency and severity of marine heatwaves, causing untold damage to coral reefs. Tropical corals, which live in symbiosis with tiny single celled algae, are sensitive to high temperatures, and exhibit a stress response called bleaching when the ocean gets too hot. In the last 4 decades, marine heatwaves have caused widespread bleaching, and killed millions of corals. Because of this, a global search is underway for reefs that can withstand the heat stress, survive future warming, and act as sources of heat-tolerant coral larvae to replenish affected areas both naturally and through restoration.
As nations meet this week in Montreal on efforts to address an unprecedented loss of biodiversity — more than a million species are threatened with extinction — a new study published in The Royal Society journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B points to the unique and vital role animals play in reforestation.
UK forests could store almost double the amount of carbon than previous calculations suggest, with consequences for our understanding of carbon stocks and humanity’s response to climate change, according to a new study involving UCL researchers.
British Trust of Ornithology researchers call for better monitoring of soil invertebrates after new research, collating 100 years of data, suggests significant and previously undetected declines in UK earthworm abundance could have occurred.
In many countries, the number of fig trees have been declining. While there are numerous explanations, one key problem is fig-wilting disease. A recognized cause of this disease is a fungus, Ceratocystis ficicola, which is transmitted by an ambrosia beetle, Euwallacea interjectus.