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Categories: Ecology: Endangered Species, Ecology: Nature

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The increasingly urgent climate crisis has led to a boom in commercial tree plantations in an attempt to offset excess carbon emissions. However, authors argue that these carbon-offset plantations might come with costs for biodiversity and other ecosystem functions. Instead, the authors say we should prioritize conserving and restoring intact ecosystems.

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A shift in the way we think about the benefits mangroves provide to coastal regions could yield significant economic and biodiversity gains and protect millions from flooding, research has revealed.

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An international team of researchers has released a landmark study on contemporary evolutionary change in natural populations. Their study uses one of the largest genomic datasets ever produced for animals in their natural environment, comprising nearly 4,000 Darwin's finches. The study has revealed the genetic basis of adaptation in this iconic group.

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The rapid formation of 500 different species of fish in a single lake, each with specialized ecological roles, resulted from a small but genetically diverse hybrid population.

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Recent discoveries in the field of epigenetics, the study of inheritance of traits that occur without changing the DNA sequence, have shown that chronological age in mammals correlates with epigenetic changes that accumulate during the lifetime of an individual. In humans, this observation has led to the development of epigenetic clocks, which are now extensively used as biomarkers of aging. While these clocks work accurately from birth until death, they are set back to zero in each new generation. Now, an international team shows that epigenetic clocks not only exist in plants, but that these clocks keep ticking accurately over many generations.

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Paleontologists discover possible DNA remains in fossil turtle that lived 6 million years ago in Panama, where continents collide.

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For decades, fish-eating killer whales in the Pacific Northwest have been observed harassing and even killing porpoises without consuming them —- a perplexing behavior that has long intrigued scientists.

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Researchers tried a new approach to resolve the scientific debate over whether it was a giant asteroid or volcanoes that wiped out the dinosaurs -- they removed scientists from the debate and let the computers decide. The researchers created a model powered by 130 interconnected processors that, without human input, reverse-engineered the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction until they reached a scenario that matched the fossil record. The model determined that while a meteorite contributed to the cataclysm, the outpouring of climate-altering gases from the nearly 1-million-year eruptions of volcanoes in western India's Deccan Traps would have been sufficient to trigger the extinction and clear the way for the ascendance of mammals.

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Past cycles of climate change, along with human exploitation, have led to only small and isolated stocks of Atlantic walrus remaining. The current population is at high risk of the same issues affecting them severely, according to a new study.

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Researchers studying arboreal ants in a Florida forest explore the fundamental question of how resource availability and competition shape biodiversity.

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Combinations of unfavorable weather conditions over several years can cause a decline in insect biomass.

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Protecting large swaths of Earth's land can help stem the tide of biodiversity loss -- especially when those protected areas are in less disturbed landscapes and in countries with effective national governance. A new study looked at how amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds fared in protected versus unprotected areas worldwide. Vertebrate abundance decreased five times more slowly inside protected areas, offering much-needed support for the United Nations' '30 by 30' conservation initiative.

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Climate change and a range of human-caused factors have disrupted the habitats of many California native trees and other plant species. Efforts to protect or relocate plant species would be bolstered by understanding which habitats are best suited for each species. A new study identified a range of characteristics from more than 100 types of plants that can be analyzed to determine each species' preferred temperature and rainfall amount.

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The Allpahuayo-Mishana National Reserve in Peru has often been described as the most biodiverse rainforest in the world. For example, in recent decades, scientist have discovered several new bird species from the region. Researchers from the University of Turku in Finland have studied the insect biodiversity in Allpahuayo-Mishana for over 20 years. In their latest study, the scientist described a new wasp genus, Capitojoppa, to science.

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How are environmental changes, loss of biodiversity, and the spread of pathogens connected? The answer is a puzzle. Researchers have now described one piece of that puzzle, showing that the destruction of tropical rainforests harms the diversity of mosquito species. At the same time, more resilient species of mosquitoes become more prevalent -- which also means the viruses they carry are more abundant. If there are many individuals of a given species, those viruses can spread quickly.

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Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth, but the overuse of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture is not sustainable. A team of bacteriologists and plant scientists discuss the possibility of using genetic engineering to facilitate mutualistic relationships between plants and nitrogen-fixing microbes called 'diazotrophs.' These engineered associations would help crops acquire nitrogen from the air by mimicking the mutualisms between legumes and nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

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Wildfires in California, exacerbated by human-driven climate change, are getting more severe. To better manage them, there's a growing need to know exactly what fuels the blazes after they ignite. Scientists now report that one of the chief fuels of wildfires in California's Sierra Nevada mountains is the decades-old remains of large trees.

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For the first time, researchers have extracted ancient DNA from Caribbean parrot fossils and archaeological specimens, showing that species thought to be endemic to particular islands were historically more widespread and diverse.

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New research has validated at scale, one of the theories that has underpinned ecology for over half a century. In doing so, the findings raise further questions about whether models should be revised to capture human impacts on natural systems.

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A new study shows unprecedented heat is likely to lead to the next mass extinction, akin to when the dinosaurs died out, eliminating nearly all mammals in some 250 million years time.