Ecology News

May 10, 2024

Top Headlines

Transformation of Ocean Management Is Underway

May 9, 2024 — Despite its benefits and recognition as a keystone practice of ocean stewardship and conservation, adoption of ecosystem-based management has been slow to take hold. To support this change in ocean management, a group of researchers and ...

Rapid Oyster Reef Restoration Gives Hope for Repairing the Sea

May 9, 2024 — After a century of functional extinction on the Australian mainland, a Flat oyster reef has been successfully restored along a metropolitan Adelaide ...

Saturated Soils Could Impact Survival of Young Trees Planted to Address Climate Change

May 9, 2024 — New research has looked into the potential effects of increased rainfall in regions being earmarked for expansion of temperate rainforests. Amid global calls for more trees to be planted as part of ...

Limited Adaptability Makes Freshwater Bacteria Vulnerable to Climate Change

May 8, 2024 — Freshwater bacteria with small genomes frequently undergo prolonged periods of adaptive stagnation. Based on genomic analyses of samples from European lakes, researchers uncovered specific evolutionary strategies that shape these bacteria's ...

Latest Headlines

updated 5:28pm EDT

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease Is Shifting the Ecological Balance of Caribbean Reefs

May 3, 2024 — A new study shows stony coral tissue loss disease is causing drastic changes in the Caribbean's population of corals, which is sure to disrupt the ...

To Bend the Curve of Biodiversity Loss, Nature Recovery Must Be Integrated Across All Sectors

May 2, 2024 — The alarming rates of biodiversity loss worldwide have made clear that the classical way of governing biodiversity recovery based on protected areas ...

Big Data Reveals True Climate Impact of Worldwide Air Travel

Apr. 30, 2024 — A new study that looked at nearly 40 million flights in 2019 calculated the greenhouse gas emissions from air travel for essentially every country on the planet. At 911 million tons, the total ...

How Can Forests Be Reforested in a Climate-Friendly Way?

Apr. 29, 2024 — Europe's forests have already been severely affected by climate change. Thousands of hectares of trees have already died due to drought and bark beetles. Scientists have now investigated which trees ...

Unveiling the Lionfish Invasion in the Mediterranean Sea

Apr. 25, 2024 — Researchers have published a comprehensive study on the invasion of lionfish in the Mediterranean Sea, highlighting a rapid spread and the potential ecological impacts. The research shows the ...

Deer Are Expanding North, and That's Not Good for Caribou

Apr. 25, 2024 — In the boreal forest of Western Canada, researchers have considered that both changing climate and increased habitat alteration have enabled deer to push farther ...

Diversity and Productivity Go Branch-in-Branch

Apr. 24, 2024 — Researchers found that forests with higher trait diversity not only adapt better to climate change but may also thrive. The study unveiled how tree functional trait diversity plays a pivotal role in ...

Climate Change Could Become the Main Driver of Biodiversity Decline by Mid-Century

Apr. 25, 2024 — Global biodiversity has declined between 2% and 11% during the 20th century due to land-use change alone, according to a large multi-model study. ...

Invasive Species Sound Off About Impending Ecosystem Changes

Apr. 20, 2024 — Anticipating changes to ecosystems is often at best an educated guess, but what if there was a way to better tune into possible changes occurring? Researchers have discovered that the silent growth ...

Lemur's Lament: When One Vulnerable Species Stalks Another

Apr. 19, 2024 — What can be done when one threatened animal kills another? Scientists studying critically endangered lemurs in Madagascar confronted this difficult reality when they witnessed attacks on lemurs by ...

Marine Microbial Populations: Potential Sensors of the Global Change in the Ocean

Apr. 18, 2024 — Animal and plant populations have been extensively studied, which has helped to understand ecosystem processes and evolutionary adaptations. However, this has not been the case with microbial ...

Understanding Climate Warming Impacts on Carbon Release from the Tundra

Apr. 17, 2024 — The warming climate shifts the dynamics of tundra environments and makes them release trapped carbon, according to a new study published in Nature. These changes could transform tundras from carbon ...

Unique Field Study Shows How Climate Change Affects Fire-Impacted Forests

Apr. 17, 2024 — During the unusually dry year of 2018, Sweden was hit by numerous forest fires. A research team has investigated how climate change affects recently burnt boreal forests and their ability to absorb ...

Coral Reef Microbes Point to New Way to Assess Ecosystem Health

Apr. 16, 2024 — A new study shows that ocean acidification is changing the mix of microbes in coral reef systems, which can be used to assess ecosystem ...

Tropical Forests Can't Recover Naturally Without Fruit-Eating Birds

Apr. 15, 2024 — Natural forest regeneration is hailed as a cost-effective way to restore biodiversity and sequester carbon. However, the fragmentation of tropical forests has restricted the movement of large birds ...

Where Have All the Right Whales Gone?

Apr. 12, 2024 — Marine researchers have mapped the density of one of the most endangered large whale species worldwide, the North Atlantic right whale, using new data to help avoid right whales' harmful ...

Ants in Colorado Are on the Move Due to Climate Change

Apr. 10, 2024 — Ant species living in Boulder's foothills have shifted their habitat over the last six decades, potentially affecting local ecosystems, suggests a new ...

Deforestation Harms Biodiversity of the Amazon's Perfume-Loving Orchid Bees

Apr. 10, 2024 — A survey of orchid bees in the Brazilian Amazon, carried out in the 1990s, is shedding new light the impact of deforestation on the scent-collecting pollinators, which some view as bellwethers of ...

New Approach Needed to Save Australia's Non-Perennial Rivers

Apr. 10, 2024 — An extensive review of current research incorporating geomorphology, hydrology, biogeochemistry, ecology and Indigenous knowledges identifies prevailing factors that shape water and energy flows in ...

'Teacher Toads' Can Save Native Animals from Toxic Cane Toads

Apr. 9, 2024 — Scientists from Macquarie University have come up with an innovative way to stop cane toads killing native wildlife by training goannas to avoid eating the deadly ...

Impact of Climate Change on Marine Life Much Bigger Than Previously Known

Apr. 9, 2024 — Fish and invertebrate animals are far more affected by warmer and more acidic seawater than was previously known. The big gain of the new method is that more details become known about effects of ...

Humans Can Increase Biodiversity, Archaeological Study Shows

Apr. 9, 2024 — Through the ages, the presence of humans has increased the heterogeneity and complexity of ecosystems and has often had a positive effect on their ...

Common Loons Threatened by Declining Water Clarity

Apr. 5, 2024 — The Common Loon, an icon of the northern wilderness, is under threat from climate change due to reduced water clarity, according to a new study. The study followed up an earlier paper that showed ...

eDNA Methods Give a Real-Time Look at Coral Reef Health

Apr. 5, 2024 — The study underscores the crucial role of microbes in maintaining coral reef health, akin to the human gut microbiome. Hurricanes and disease outbreaks affect coral reef water microbial communities, ...

Four in Five Bird Species Cannot Tolerate Intense Human Pressures

Apr. 5, 2024 — In a recent study, researchers found that 78% of the world's bird species do not thrive in the most modified human-dominated environments. These species are also most likely to have declining ...

What Four Decades of Canned Salmon Reveal About Marine Food Webs

Apr. 4, 2024 — Researchers have shown that levels of anisakid worms -- a common marine parasite -- rose in two salmon species in the Gulf of Alaska and Bristol Bay over a 42-year period. The team discovered this by ...

Groundbreaking Research in Groundwater's Role in Ecosystem Sustainability

Apr. 3, 2024 — Until now, groundwater -- a critical water resource around the globe, especially in dry regions -- has been largely unstudied in its importance and role in sustaining ecosystems. New groundbreaking ...

Older Trees Help to Protect an Endangered Species

Apr. 2, 2024 — The oldest trees in the forest help to prevent the disappearance of endangered species in the natural environment, according to a new study. This is the case of the wolf lichen -- threatened ...

Melting Glaciers in a Warmer Climate Provide New Ground for Invasive Species

Apr. 1, 2024 — In 2022 and 2023, biologists from research institutes in the UK and the Falkland Islands led two expeditions to South Georgia to study the impacts of invasive species on this cold and rugged ...

New Approach to Monitoring Freshwater Quality Can Identify Sources of Pollution, and Predict Their Effects

Mar. 28, 2024 — Analysing the diversity of organic compounds dissolved in freshwater provides a reliable measure of ecosystem health, say ...