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Categories: Ecology: Nature, Environmental: Ecosystems

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Namibia's legendary fairy circles are mysterious, circular, bald patches in the dry grasslands on the edge of the Namib Desert. Their formation has been researched for decades and has recently been the subject of much debate. With extensive fieldwork, researchers investigated how freshly germinated grass dies inside the fairy circle. Their results show that the grass withers due to a lack of water inside the fairy circle. The topsoil, comprised of the top 10 to 12 centimeters of the soil, acts as a kind of 'death zone' in which fresh grass cannot survive for long.

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To better understand a carbon sink in danger, scientists are turning to tiny organisms that have long been overlooked.

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Researchers have used a series of artificial stream channels to mimic the behavior of headwater creeks under future climate change scenarios. They found that drier conditions shifted the life cycles of the algae and insects that form the base of the alpine food web. However, because species adjusted to the shifts in a variety of ways, the stream ecosystems were generally resilient to the changing conditions.

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When climate scientists look to the future to determine what the effects of climate change may be, they use computer models to simulate potential outcomes such as how precipitation will change in a warming world. Some scientists are also looking at something a little more tangible: coral.

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A new study has found a decline in the abundance of marine fish species that move rapidly toward the poles to escape rising sea temperatures. The researchers explain that many animal species are currently moving toward cooler regions as a result of global warming, but the velocity of such range shifts varies greatly for different species. Examining thousands of populations from almost 150 fish species, the researchers show that contrary to the prevailing view, rapid range shifts coincide with widescale population declines.

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Scientists have discovered how female Diadem butterflies have evolved to look like African Queen butterflies to repel predators.

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A new visitor was reported on the coast of Cyprus, thanks to the growing power of citizen science. Researchers collected information and specimens through personal communication with amateur naturalists, but also through the internet, in order to compose the mosaic of repeated appearances of a giant water bug on the eastern shoreline of the island.

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Depicting worst-case climate scenarios like expanding deserts and dying coral reefs may better motivate people to support environmental policies when delivered via virtual reality, according to a research team that studied how VR and message framing affect the impact of environmental advocacy communications. The study findings may help advocacy groups decide how best to frame and deliver their messages.

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One of the largest studies on wildlife activity reveals that wild animals react differently to humans depending on where the animals live and what they eat. Bigger herbivores -- plant-eating animals like deer or moose -- tend to become more active when humans are around, while meat-eaters like wolves or wolverines tend to be less active, preferring to avoid risky encounters.

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A curious aspect of tree frogs is that they often lay their eggs on the ground where the risk of predation by natural enemies is greater than in the trees where they live. A research team suggested that the reason for this behavior is to protect the eggs from low temperatures. Their findings highlight the challenge faced by tree frogs: Should they attempt to maintain an optimal temperature for their eggs or risk predation?

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Everything is everywhere -- under certain conditions microbial communities can grow and thrive, even in places that are seemingly uninhabitable. This is the case at inactive hydrothermal vents on the sea floor. An international team is presently working to accurately quantify how much inorganic carbon can be bound in these environments.

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Acoustic recordings of a colony of little auks reveal their nocturnal activities and offer valuable monitoring means for avian biology in the Arctic.

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A new method of timber analysis can confidently identify the location in which the tree was harvested. The method has been developed with the aim of combating illegal timber imports from Russia and Belarus.

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We expect tropical animals to handle a certain degree of heat, but not wild swings in temperature. That seems to be true for tropical ectotherms, or 'cold-blooded' animals such as amphibians, reptiles, and insects. However, in a new study of 'warm-blooded' endotherms, a research team found tropical birds can handle thermal variation just fine.

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Carbon dioxide emissions are not typically associated with water ways, like streams and rivers, but emerging research shows that water bodies play an important role in storing and releasing carbon dioxide. As many states look for cost-effective ways to mitigate climate change, scientists looked at a way to optimize CO2 sensors to better measure carbon dioxide emissions in lotic, or moving, bodies of water offering a new tool that can help provide valuable information for everything from land use to climate action plans.

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Marine heat waves in the northeast Pacific Ocean create ongoing and complex disruptions of the ocean food web that may benefit some species but threaten the future of many others, a new study has shown.

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Soil stores 80 percent of carbon on earth, yet with increasing cycles of drought, that crucial reservoir is cracking and breaking down, releasing even more greenhouse gases creating an amplified feedback loop that could accelerate climate change.

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Emperor penguin populations have been exceedingly difficult to monitor because of their remote locations, and because individuals form breeding colonies on seasonal sea ice fastened to land (known as fast ice) during the dark and cold Antarctic winter. New research that incorporates very high-resolution satellite imagery with field-based validation surveys and long-term data has provided the first multi-year time series that documents emperor penguin global population trends.

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Healthy coral reefs have rich soundscapes, full of the croaks, purrs, and grunts of various fishes and the crackling of snapping shrimp. Larval coral uses these sounds as cues to identify the best places to settle and grow. The authors found that sound could potentially be a vital tool in the effort to restore coral reefs. Broadcasting the sounds of a healthy reef to a reef that is degraded encourages coral larvae to settle there. This indicates that it's possible that 'acoustic enrichment' can be a key intervention to support imperiled reefs.

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A new study has found that the summer solstice acts as a 'starting gun' to synchronize beech tree reproduction across vast distances in Europe, affecting ecosystem functions.