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Categories: Ecology: Nature, Environmental: Ecosystems

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An invasive Asian honeybee colony in northern Australia has defied expectations, displaying emergent genetic variation in a short period of time. While bad news for biosecurity agencies, it could be a sign that species under pressure from climate change can be resilient.

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Researchers leveraged open-access digital collections to validate an age-old hypothesis in evolutionary ecology. The classic hypothesis proposes that predators select for a great variety of camouflage and a limited variety of warning signals, but the idea has never been tested on natural prey.

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Older elephants in East Africa will be most severely impacted by climate change, threatening the long-term survival of this vulnerable African mammal, according to a new study.

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African apes are already being exposed to climate change impacts, and will experience extreme events such as wildfires, heatwaves and flooding more frequently in the next 30 years, according to a new study.

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A new study highlights a crucial biosphere feedback mechanism and its effects on releasing soil carbon into the atmosphere.

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Scientists uncover the intricate dance between drought, wildfires and invasive species in Southern California's coastal sage scrub ecosystems.

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Fish weight in the western North Pacific Ocean dipped in the 2010s due to warmer water limiting food supplies, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed the individual weight and overall biomass of 13 species of fish. In the 1980s and 2010s, the fish were lighter. They attributed the first period of weight loss to greater numbers of Japanese sardine, which increased competition with other species for food. During the 2010s, while the number of Japanese sardine and chub mackerel moderately increased, the effect of climate change warming the ocean appears to have resulted in more competition for food, as cooler, nutrient-dense water could not easily rise to the surface. These results have implications for fisheries and policymakers trying to manage ocean resources under future climate change scenarios.

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Chemistry in the ground affect how many kids wild animals have Areas with more copper and selenium in the ground lead to higher reproductive success in wild musk oxen in Greenland.

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A unique long-term study quantified the abundance of whitespotted eagle and giant manta rays in Southeast Florida. Researchers conducted 120 survey flights between 2014 and 2021 from Miami north to the Jupiter Inlet. One or both species were seen on nearly every flight and both populations appear to be stable in the region. The giant manta rays were more abundant in the south and the whitespotted eagle rays were found all along the coast. Neither species seems to be deterred by the greater human population density in Fort Lauderdale/Miami.

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Fish species respond to temperature increases by going after more readily available prey. Models suggest this behavior could lead to more extinctions.

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Researchers discovered that sea cucumbers -- sediment-eating organisms that function like autonomous vacuum cleaners of the ocean floor -- play an enormous role in protecting coral from disease.

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Studies on climate and infectious disease typically focus on temperature's role on disease transmission. However, an international team found that both temperature and humidity contribute to future trends in the transmission of parasitic worm infections.

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Up to only a few inches in length, with a lemon-hued belly, the foothill yellow-legged frog may seem unassuming. But its range once stretched from central Oregon to Baja California. In 2023, it was listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. Its rapidly decreasing range is due in part to a fungal pathogen called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd, that has devastated amphibians around the world.

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Forests have a critical role to play in capturing and storing carbon from the Earth's atmosphere -- but some models exaggerate their carbon removal potential by almost three-fold, according to a leading professor of forest economics.

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Eight new Pacific bee species and new insights into Fijian bird behaviour on Viti Levu Island have been described in new scientific studies. The research highlights the potential for species discovery, ecological and conservation knowledge and cultural engagement from Asia-Pacific research collaborations.

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Smarter crop farming that combats weeds, insect pests and plant diseases by integrating modern technologies like AI-based monitoring, robotics, and next-generation biotechnology with healthy and resilient agricultural ecosystems.

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Warmer soils harbor a greater diversity of active microbes, according to a new study. The study represents a significant shift in our understanding of how microbial activity in the soil influences the global carbon cycle and possible feedback mechanisms on the climate. Until now, scientists have assumed that higher soil temperatures accelerate the growth of microbes, thus increasing the release of carbon into the atmosphere. However, this increased release of carbon is actually caused by the activation of previously dormant bacteria.

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To ensure that plants flower at the right time of year, they possess an internal clock, which enables them to measure the amount of daylight during a day. Biologists now describe that the mutation of a specific gene makes the flowering time of barley almost entirely independent of day length. This mutation can be useful for breeding varieties adapted to altered climatic conditions with relatively mild winters and hot, dry summers.

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Streams with ample connections to shallow groundwater flow-paths have greater microbial diversity and are more effective at preventing toxic forms of metals -- often products of upstream mining -- from entering and being transported downstream.

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More than 100 million years ago, the ancestors of the first snakes were small lizards that lived alongside other small, nondescript lizards in the shadow of the dinosaurs.