Ecology Research News

May 28, 2024

Top Headlines

Global Activity of Seafloor Biodiversity Mapped

May 28, 2024 — A team of scientists has used artificial intelligence (AI) to map the activities of seafloor invertebrate animals, such as worms, clams and shrimps, across all the oceans of the ...

Future Climate Impacts Put Whale Diet at Risk

May 22, 2024 — A new study predicts future climate change impacts could disrupt the krill-heavy diet that humpback whales in the southern hemisphere ...

Regional Differences in Bird Diversity in Agroforestry Systems

May 21, 2024 — The diversity and ecological functionality of bird communities in tropical agroforestry systems are shaped by the surrounding landscape, in particular the extent and composition of the ...

A Rise in Sea Urchins and Related Damage to Kelp Forests Impacts Oregon's Gray Whales and Their Food

May 21, 2024 — A recent boom in the purple sea urchin population off the southern Oregon Coast appears to have had an indirect and negative impact on the gray whales that usually forage in the region, a new study ...

Latest Headlines

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Smoke Covered 70% of California During Biggest Wildfire Years

May 22, 2024 — As much as 70 percent of California was covered by wildfire smoke during parts of 2020 and 2021, according to a new ...

Conservation of Nature's Strongholds Needed to Halt Biodiversity Loss

May 21, 2024 — To achieve global biodiversity targets, conservationists and governments must prioritize the establishment and effective management of large, interconnected protected areas with high ecological ...

Access to Gardens and Citizen Science Helps Encourage Conservation Among Children, Study Shows

May 15, 2024 — Access to gardens and citizen science projects at school can help promote pro-conservation behaviour among pupils, a new study ...

Climate Change Is Most Prominent Threat to Pollinators

May 15, 2024 — A new article has found that climate change is the most prominent threat to pollinators -- such as bumblebees, wasps, and butterflies -- who are essential for biodiversity conservation, crop yields ...

From Roots to Resilience: Investigating the Vital Role of Microbes in Coastal Plant Health

May 15, 2024 — Understanding how salt marsh grass stays healthy is of crucial ecological importance, and studying the ways bacteria interact with these plants is ...

Mosaic Grassland Landscapes Are the Most Beneficial

May 14, 2024 — Grassland provides many services for humans, animals and nature, such as feed production, carbon storage and recreation. Researchers spent two years investigating permanent grassland, its ...

Island Birds More Adaptable Than Previously Thought

May 13, 2024 — The researchers found that birds were more evolutionarily similar on smaller, more isolated islands than on larger, less remote places. The team had expected to find that forested areas had more ...

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 ...

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 ...

Digging Up Good News for Microbial Studies

May 20, 2024 — Findings indicate that soil stored under refrigerated or air-dried conditions can still retain the needed information for understanding microbial community composition and structure for many ...

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 delicate balance of the ecosystem and threaten ...

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. Projections show climate change could become the main ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Geobiology: New Placozoan Habitat Discovered

Apr. 11, 2024 — Traces of DNA in the stomachs of predatory snails give a team og geobiologists new insights into the ecology of ...

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 ...

'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 ...

Scientists Discover New Phage Resistance Mechanism in Phage-Bacterial Arms Race

Apr. 9, 2024 — Scientists describe a new mechanism impacting the phage-bacterial arms race, a nanosized epibiotic parasite, TM7x, which helps its host bacterium (a Schaalia odontolytica strain called XH001) achieve ...