Ecology News

July 18, 2025

Top Headlines

Corals in Crisis: A Hidden Chemical Shift Is Reshaping Hawaiian Reefs

July 16, 2025 — Hawaiian coral reefs may face unprecedented ocean acidification within 30 years, driven by carbon emissions. A new study by University of Hawai‘i researchers shows that even under conservative climate scenarios, nearshore waters will change more ...

They Fled the Flames—now Jaguars Rule a Wetland Refuge

July 16, 2025 — After devastating wildfires scorched the Brazilian Pantanal, an unexpected phenomenon unfolded—more jaguars began arriving at a remote wetland already known for having the densest jaguar population on Earth. Scientists discovered that not only did ...

No Training Needed: How Humans Instinctively Read Nature’s Signals

July 10, 2025 — People can intuitively sense how biodiverse a forest is just by looking at photos or listening to sounds, and their gut feelings surprisingly line up with what scientists ...

Honey Bees Remove 80% of Pollen—leaving Native Bees With Nothing

July 7, 2025 — Feral honey bees, once celebrated for their agricultural value, are now threatening native ecosystems in Southern California by monopolizing pollen sources and overwhelming native pollinators. A new study reveals they remove up to 80% of pollen in a ...

Rainforest Deaths Are Surging and Scientists Just Found the Shocking Cause

July 3, 2025 — Tropical trees are dying faster than ever, and it's not just heat or drought to blame. Scientists have uncovered a surprising culprit: ordinary thunderstorms. These quick, fierce storms, powered by climate change, are toppling trees with intense ...

Tiny Creatures, Massive Impact: How Zooplankton Store 65 Million Tonnes of Carbon Annually

June 27, 2025 — Zooplankton like copepods aren’t just fish food—they’re carbon-hauling powerhouses. By diving deep into the ocean each winter, they’re secretly stashing 65 million tonnes of carbon far below ...

How Life Endured the Snowball Earth: Evidence from Antarctic Meltwater Ponds

June 19, 2025 — During Earth's ancient Snowball periods, when the entire planet was wrapped in ice, life may have endured in tiny meltwater ponds on the surface of equatorial glaciers. MIT researchers discovered ...

Winter Sea Ice Supercharges Southern Ocean’s CO2 Uptake

June 18, 2025 — A breakthrough study has uncovered that the Southern Ocean's power to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere fluctuates dramatically depending on winter sea ice. When sea ice lingers longer into winter, the ocean absorbs up to 20% more CO2, thanks ...

Space-Laser AI Maps Forest Carbon in Minutes—a Game-Changer for Climate Science

June 14, 2025 — A pioneering study reveals how archaeologists' satellite tools can be repurposed to tackle climate change. By using AI and satellite LiDAR imagery from NASA and ESA, researchers have found a faster, ...

Geological Time Capsule Highlights Great Barrier Reef's Resilience

June 2, 2025 — New research adds to our understanding of how rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change foreshadow the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. The findings suggest the reef can withstand rising sea levels in isolation but is vulnerable to ...

Coastal Flooding More Frequent Than Previously Thought

June 2, 2025 — Flooding in coastal communities is happening far more often than previously thought, according to a new study. The study also found major flaws with the widely used approach of using marine water level data to capture instances of ...

Researchers Use Deep Learning to Predict Flooding This Hurricane Season

June 2, 2025 — Researchers have developed a deep learning model called LSTM-SAM that predicts extreme water levels from tropical cyclones more efficiently and accurately, especially in data-scarce coastal regions, to offer a faster, low-cost tool for flood ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:06pm EDT

Fighting Fire With Fire: How Prescribed Burns Reduce Wildfire Damage and Pollution

June 30, 2025 — Wildfires are becoming more intense and dangerous, but a new Stanford-led study offers hope: prescribed burns—intentionally set, controlled ...

Amphibian Road Mortality Drops by Over 80% With Wildlife Underpasses, Study Shows

May 30, 2025 — A new study shows that wildlife underpass tunnels dramatically reduce deaths of frog, salamanders, and other amphibians migrating across ...

When the Forest Is No Longer a Home -- Forest Bats Seek Refuge in Settlements

May 28, 2025 — Many bat species native to Germany, such as the Leisler's bat, are forest specialists. However, as it is becoming increasingly hard for them to find ...

Huge Sea-Urchin Populations Are Overwhelming Hawaii's Coral Reefs

May 28, 2025 — This study measured the growth rate of coral reefs in Honaunau Bay, Hawaii, using on-site data gathering and aerial imagery. Researchers found that the reefs are being eroded by sea urchin ...

The Ocean Seems to Be Getting Darker

May 27, 2025 — Scientists, who have spent more than a decade examining the impact of artificial light at night on the world's coasts and oceans, have shown that more than one-fifth of the global ocean -- an area ...

How Marine Plankton Adapts to a Changing World

May 26, 2025 — Plankton may be tiny, but they play an important role in the ocean. As the foundation of marine ecosystems, they support ocean food webs and help regulate Earth's climate by storing carbon. While lab ...

Managing Surrogate Species, Providing a Conservation Umbrella for More Species

May 26, 2025 — A new study shows that monitoring and managing select bird species can provide benefits for other species within specific ...

Yeast Reveals How Species Adapt to a Warmer Climate

May 24, 2025 — How do organisms adapt to climate change? A new study reveals the complex interplay between genetic diversity and temperature tolerance ...

When the Sea Moves Inland: A Global Climate Wake-Up Call from Bangladesh's Delta

May 23, 2025 — As sea levels climb and weather grows more extreme, coastal regions everywhere are facing a creeping threat: salt. Salinization of freshwater and ...

Songbirds' Great Risk Results in Great Genetic Reward

May 22, 2025 — Songbirds who make the arduous flight from their nesting sites in northern boreal forests to warm, southern climates in the winter may be rewarded for their journey with greater genetic ...

New Study Reveals How Competition Between Algae Is Transforming the Gulf of Maine

May 22, 2025 — New research shows how rapidly proliferating turf algae are waging 'chemical warfare' to inhibit the recovery of kelp forests along Maine's warming ...

Imaging Technique Removes the Effect of Water in Underwater Scenes

May 21, 2025 — SeaSplat is an image-analysis tool that cuts through the ocean's optical effects to generate images of underwater environments reveal an ocean scene's true colors. Researchers paired the ...

Fool's Gold: A Hidden Climate Stabilizer

May 21, 2025 — Researchers look to extremes in the past to study how the system reacts to imbalances. They detail an overlooked mechanism for how the ocean can help stabilize massive releases of carbon into the ...

Native Turtles Return to Yosemite After Removal of Invasive Bullfrogs

May 20, 2025 — After invasive American bullfrogs 'croak,' native turtles return to Yosemite, finds a new ...

Thousands of Animal Species Threatened by Climate Change

May 20, 2025 — A novel analysis suggests more than 3,500 animal species are threatened by climate change and also sheds light on huge gaps in fully understanding the risk to the animal ...

Heat-Tolerant Symbionts a Critical Key to Protecting Florida's Elkhorn Coral from Bleaching During Marine Heatwaves

May 16, 2025 — A new study reveals that heat-tolerant symbiotic algae may be essential to saving elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) -- a foundational species in Caribbean reef ecosystems -- from the devastating ...

Amazon Could Survive Long-Term Drought but at a High Cost

May 15, 2025 — The Amazon rainforest may be able to survive long-term drought caused by climate change, but adjusting to a drier, warmer world would exact a heavy toll, a study ...

Scientists Use Fossils to Assess the Health of Florida's Largest Remaining Seagrass Bed: Surprisingly, It's Doing Well!

May 15, 2025 — A new study shows that seagrass ecosystems along the northern half of Florida's Gulf Coast have remained relatively healthy and undisturbed for the last several thousand ...

An Ink That Boosts Coral Reef Settlement by 20 Times

May 14, 2025 — With coral reefs in crisis due to climate change, scientists have engineered a bio-ink that could help promote coral larvae settlement and restore these underwater ecosystems before it's too ...

Climate Change Is Turning Coastal Lagoons Into 'Salty Soup'

May 14, 2025 — The impacts of human activity and climate change are coalescing to make coastal lagoons saltier, changing the microbial life they support and the function they play in their ecosystems, according to ...

Invasive Salmon, Clams and Seaweed Are Next Threats to Biodiversity in Britain

May 12, 2025 — Pink salmon, Purple Asian clams, marine invertebrates that form spaghetti-like colonies and a nematode worm that causes extensive deaths of trees are among the new entries in experts' watchlist ...

Helping Birds and Floating Solar Energy Coexist

May 12, 2025 — How might floating solar energy projects impact wild birds and vice versa? A paper outlines key considerations for a growing floating solar ...

First Fossil Evidence of Endangered Tropical Tree Discovered

May 9, 2025 — Scientists have discovered fossil evidence of an endangered, living tropical tree species. The unprecedented find was made in Brunei, a country on the large island of Borneo, and reveals a critical ...

Red Alert for Our Closest Relatives

May 8, 2025 — New report shows drastic decline in endangered primates and calls for conservation ...

Just 30 Species of Tree Dominate World's Most Diverse Savanna

May 8, 2025 — Scientists have found that a mere 30 species of trees in the Cerrado -- the world's largest and most floristically diverse savanna -- account for nearly half of all its trees. The ...

Pioneering Research Reveals Tree-Mendous Potential of Inexpensive Drones to Help Community Forests Flourish and Unlock Restoration Funding

May 7, 2025 — New research has shown how small, inexpensive drones combined with free, open source software can be used by community forest organizations to calculate and monitor the amount of carbon stored in ...

Fewer Parasites in the Indian River Lagoon Signal Big Ecosystem Problems

May 7, 2025 — Parasites are crucial indicators of ecosystem health, and their absence can signal trouble. Once pristine, Florida's Indian River Lagoon (IRL) now faces pollution and algal blooms that have ...

Replanted Rainforests May Benefit from Termite Transplants

May 6, 2025 — Termites -- infamous for their ability to destroy wood -- are rarely welcomed into rainforests that have been painstakingly replanted. But a new paper suggests that termite transplants may be ...

Halo Patterns Around Coral Reefs May Signal Resilience

May 5, 2025 — A new study links grazing halo patterns in coral reefs, as well as those in other patchy habitats, to the spatial patterns of the shelter habitat itself. The researchers found that grazing halos are ...

Artificial Oxygen Supply in Coastal Waters: A Hope With Risks

May 5, 2025 — Could the artificial introduction of oxygen revitalise dying coastal waters? While oxygenation approaches have already been proven successful in lakes, their potential side effects must be carefully ...