Trees News

June 20, 2025

Top Headlines

New Velvet Worm Species a First for the Arid Karoo

May 30, 2025 — A new species of velvet worm, Peripatopsis barnardi, represents the first ever species from the arid Karoo, which indicates that the area was likely historically more forested than at present. In the Cape Fold Mountains, we now know that every ...

Agriculture in Forests Can Provide Climate and Economic Dividends

May 30, 2025 — Forest-based agroforestry can restore forests, promote livelihoods, and combat climate change, but emerging agroforestry initiatives focusing only on tree planting is leading to missed opportunities to support beneficial outcomes of forest ...

Forest in Sync: Spruce Trees May Communicate During a Solar Eclipse

May 29, 2025 — Regular light-dark cycles greatly affect organisms, and events like eclipses induce distinctive physiological and behavioral shifts. While well-documented in animals, plant behavior during eclipses remains largely unexplored. Scientists monitored ...

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 tree hollows in forest plantations, so they are ...

Bed Bugs Are Most Likely the First Human Pest, New Research Shows

May 28, 2025 — Researchers compared the whole genome sequence of two genetically distinct lineages of bed bug, and their findings indicate bed bugs may well be the first true urban ...

Nordic Studies Show the Significance of Old-Growth Forests for Biodiversity

May 27, 2025 — Researchers conducted a systematic review of 99 scientific publications that compared the flora or fauna of old-growth forests, managed forests and clearcut sites in boreal Europe. The reviewed studies showed large differences in the species ...

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 ...

Ox-Eye Daisy, Bellis and Yarrow: Flower Strips With at Least Two Sown Species Provide 70 Percent More Natural Enemies of Pests

May 26, 2025 — Planting flower strips in a field with at least two species can increase the number of natural enemies of pests by 70 percent. The more flower species, the better the effect, according to a new ...

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 ...

Scientists Have Figured out How Extinct Giant Ground Sloths Got So Big and Where It All Went Wrong

May 22, 2025 — Scientists have analyzed ancient DNA and compared more than 400 fossils from 17 natural history museums to figure out how and why extinct sloths got so ...

Scientific Breakthrough: We Can Now Halve the Price of Costly Cancer Drug

May 19, 2025 — The demand for the widely used cancer drug Taxol is increasing, but it's difficult and expensive to produce because it hasn't been possible to do it biosynthetically. Until now, that is. Researchers have now cracked the last part of a code that ...

Dual Associations With Two Fungi Improve Tree Fitness

May 16, 2025 — When trees and soil fungi form close associations with each other, both partners benefit. Many tree species have further enhanced this cooperation by forming a concurrent symbiosis with two different groups of mycorrhizal fungi. Those trees cope ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:52am EDT

These Beetles Can See a Color Most Insects Can’t

June 18, 2025 — Beetles that can see the color red? That s exactly what scientists discovered in two Mediterranean species that defy the norm of insect vision. While most insects are blind to red, these beetles use ...

What a Dinosaur Ate 100 Million Years ago—Preserved in a Fossilized Time Capsule

June 10, 2025 — A prehistoric digestive time capsule has been unearthed in Australia: plant fossils found inside a sauropod dinosaur offer the first definitive ...

Whales Blow Bubble Rings--And They Might Be Talking to Us

June 7, 2025 — Humpback whales have been observed blowing bubble rings during friendly interactions with humans a behavior never before documented. This surprising display may be more than play; it could represent ...

Human Activity Reduces Plant Diversity Hundreds of Kilometers Away

May 16, 2025 — Natural ecosystems comprise groups of species capable of living in the specific conditions of a biological system. However, if we visit a specific natural area, we will not find all the species ...

Growth Before Photosynthesis: How Trees Regulate Their Water Balance

May 13, 2025 — In order for trees to grow, they need to control their water balance meticulously. A study shows how trees react to drought -- and revises previous ...

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 ...

Heat and Land Use: Bees Suffer in Particular

May 9, 2025 — In a new study, researchers are investigating the interaction of major global change drivers on ...

Can Frisky Flies Save Human Lives?

May 9, 2025 — A scientist decided to find out why a bacterial infection makes fruit flies promiscuous. What he discovered could help curb mosquito-borne diseases and manage crop ...

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 ...

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 'hyperdominance' by ...

160 Million Years Ago, This Fungus Pierced Trees Like a Microscopic Spear

June 8, 2025 — In a paper published in National Science Review, a Chinese team of scientists highlights the discovery of well-preserved blue-stain fungal hyphae within a Jurassic fossil wood from northeastern ...

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 ...

Discovery: A Better, More Targeted Termite Terminator

May 6, 2025 — Researchers have identified a chemical that kills about 95 percent of a western drywood termite colony without off-target effects on ...

A Fully Automated Tool for Species Tree Inference

May 5, 2025 — Engineers are making it easier for researchers from a broad range of backgrounds to understand how different species are evolutionarily related, and support the transformative biological and medical ...

Blue Tips Are Red Algae's Red Flags

May 5, 2025 — Some red algae exhibit structural color that gives their growth tips a blue hue and the rest of their bodies including their fruiting structures a white hue. Moreover, since the color-producing ...

AI System Targets Tree Pollen Behind Allergies

May 1, 2025 — Imagine trying to tell identical twins apart just by looking at their fingerprints. That's how challenging it can be for scientists to distinguish the tiny powdery pollen grains produced by fir, ...

New Pests and Diseases Will Cut UK Tree Growth

Apr. 28, 2025 — The arrival of new plant pests and diseases is likely to severely damage UK trees and woodlands in the coming decades, new research ...

Flower Strips Could Save Apple Farmers Pest Control Costs

Apr. 28, 2025 — Planting wildflowers in apple orchards could save farmers up to 3,000 per hectare a year, according to a new ...

Newborns Living Near Trees Tend to Be Healthier: New Data Suggests It's Not Because Healthier People Reside Near Parks

Apr. 23, 2025 — The link between proximity to greenspace -- including trees and parks-- and healthy birth outcomes is well established. Now new data adds to our understanding of these health benefits, accounting for ...

How Do You Like Them Apples? Apple Genus Evolution Revealed

Apr. 22, 2025 — A new comparison and analysis of the genomes of species in the genus Malus, which includes the domesticated apple and its wild relatives, revealed the evolutionary relationships among the species and ...

Evidence of Potential Bed Bug Insecticide Resistance in Gene Mutation

Apr. 22, 2025 — Urban entomologists have discovered a gene mutation that could contribute to bed bug insecticide ...

Introduced Trees Are Becoming More Common in the Eastern United States, While Native Diversity Declines

Apr. 21, 2025 — In a new study, researchers used more than 5 million measurements from individual trees across much of eastern North America and showed the rate at which introduced species are spreading has ...

Early Detection of Wood Coating Deterioration to Better Maintain Wooden Structures

Apr. 17, 2025 — From the Japanese cypress to the ponderosa pine, wood has been used in construction for millennia. Though materials like steel and concrete have largely taken over large building construction, wood ...

A New Record for California's Highest Tree

Apr. 17, 2025 — A professor's casual hike in the High Sierra turned into a new elevation record for California's highest tree, the Jeffrey pine, which wasn't formerly known to grow at extreme ...

Experiment in Floodplain Forest: Using Tree Mortality to Support Oak Regeneration

Apr. 16, 2025 — The pedunculate oaks typical of Leipzig's floodplain forest and other German oak forests are struggling to regenerate in the understorey due to a lack of light. One reason for this is the ...

Foraging on the Wing: How Can Ecologically Similar Birds Live Together?

Apr. 15, 2025 — A new study used modern methods to reassess a foundational study in biology that explained how ecologically similar species of wood warblers coexist. The research team examined foraging behavior, ...

Scientists Discover That Fruit Fly Larvae Can Sense Electric Fields

Apr. 9, 2025 — While it may be an unfamiliar sensation to humans, electroreception is relatively commonplace in the animal kingdom. Sharks, bees and even the platypus all share this ability to detect electric ...

Declining Insect Biodiversity in the Tropics

Apr. 8, 2025 — Ecologists are investigating the decline of insect populations in the world's tropical forests. Insects, the most abundant and diverse group of animals on Earth, are experiencing alarming ...

Picky Eaters by Day, Buffet by Night: Butterfly, Moth Diets Sync to Plant Aromas

Apr. 3, 2025 — The scent of blooming flowers and fresh plant life is not just a perk of springtime; it is a key driver in the survival and evolution of butterflies and moths. New research reveals how the daily ...

Migrating Flies Vital for People and Nature

Apr. 2, 2025 — Buzzing insects may be seen as pests -- but globally, hundreds of fly species migrate over long distances, with major benefits for people and nature, new research ...