Ecology News

May 1, 2025

Top Headlines

Want to Understand Grasslands? Look at the Bigger Picture

Apr. 28, 2025 — New research asks how local and regional factors determine the makeup of plant species in grasslands. Researchers from a restoration ecology lab are attempting to solve a longstanding question in community ecology: how do regional and local factors ...

Keeping Tabs on Native Woodlands in Times of Flood and Drought

Apr. 24, 2025 — Like farmland in Australia, native forests struggle with drought and flooding, so future management decisions need more sophisticated systems to monitor and manage their water needs. A new study aims to provide a good estimate of water used by trees ...

Restoring Oil Wells Back to Nature With Moss

Apr. 30, 2025 — In what could represent a milestone in ecological restoration, researchers have implemented a method capable of restoring peatlands at tens of thousands of oil and gas exploration sites in Western Canada. The project involves lowering the surface of ...

When Sea Stars Fall, Sea Otters Rise: Sea Otters Benefit from Prey Boom Triggered by Loss of Ochre Sea Stars

Apr. 30, 2025 — In 2013, a sea star wasting syndrome decimated populations of Pisaster along the west coast of North America and along the Monterey Peninsula in California, where this study was conducted. The orange ...

Latest Headlines

updated 8:51pm EDT

Elephant Instead of Wild Boar? What Could Have Been in Europe

Apr. 28, 2025 — Even under today's climatic conditions, the long-extinct straight-tusked elephant could still live in Europe. This is the conclusion of a recent study. For this finding, the research group combined ...

Invasive Weed Threatens Southern California's Deserts

Apr. 24, 2025 — Once thought resistant to invasion, California's deserts are losing native plants to aggressive weedy species like Saharan mustard. New research shows its spread is disrupting biodiversity and ...

Caspian Sea Decline Threatens Endangered Seals, Coastal Communities and Industry

Apr. 10, 2025 — Urgent action is needed to protect endangered species, human health and industry from the impacts of the Caspian Sea shrinking, research has ...

Restoration Programs Won’t Save Coral Reefs

Apr. 8, 2025 — As coral bleaching and deaths become more widespread globally, experts show that over a third of restoration projects fail and might never be scalable enough to have positive effects on reef ...

'Internet of Nature' Helps Researchers Explore the Web of Life

Apr. 11, 2025 — A novel paper is widening understanding of how species interact within ecosystems via the so-called 'Internet of Nature.' The paper reveals that species not only exchange matter and energy but also ...

In Croatia's Freshwater Lakes, Selfish Bacteria Hoard Nutrients

Apr. 10, 2025 — Bacteria play key roles in degrading organic matter, both in the soil and in aquatic ecosystems. While most bacteria digest large molecules externally, allowing other community members to share and ...

Coral Reefs Exude Myriad Chemicals, Fueling Dynamic Microbial Recycling of Nutrients

Apr. 9, 2025 — New research revealed the remarkable chemical diversity of substances exuded by coral reefs and demonstrated that thousands of different chemicals ...

Colourful City Birds

Apr. 9, 2025 — Bird species that do well in urban areas are more colorful and less ...

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 declines, ...

New Warnings of a 'Butterfly Effect' -- In Reverse

Mar. 31, 2025 — A new study warns that global climate change may have a devastating effect on butterflies, turning their species-rich, mountain habitats from refuges into traps. Think of it as the 'butterfly effect' ...

What's on the Menu for Ryukyu's Minute Mammals?

Apr. 8, 2025 — Japan's Ryukyu Islands, which includes Okinawa, are the exclusive home to two rare mammals, the Amami rabbit and Ryukyu long-furred rat. These animals are hard to observe, but conservationists ...

Global Patterns in Seed Plant Distribution Over Millions of Years

Mar. 28, 2025 — Why do some plants thrive in specific regions but not in others? A study explores the factors shaping plant distributions and how these patterns have changed over millions of years. Analyzing nearly ...

Coral Diseases and Water Quality Play a Key Role for Coral Restoration and Survival Efforts

Mar. 26, 2025 — Coral diseases, particularly in the Caribbean, have caused major declines in coral populations, especially affecting staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) and Elkhorn (A. palmata) corals, which play a ...

If Native Plants Are Going to Survive Climate Change, They Need Our Help to Move -- Here's How to Do It Safely

Mar. 26, 2025 — Many native plants in the U.S. cannot possibly move themselves fast enough to avoid climate-change driven extinction. If these native plants are going to have any chance of surviving into the future, ...

The Devastating Human Impact on Biodiversity

Mar. 26, 2025 — Humans are having a highly detrimental impact on biodiversity worldwide. Not only is the number of species declining, but the composition of species communities is also changing. This is one of the ...

Ecologists Document Utah's Bee Species and Say Beehive State Is Rich in Bee Diversity

Mar. 25, 2025 — Understanding bee distributions is essential to protecting these vital pollinators. Since conservation efforts and policies are often made at the state level, maintaining state-specific bee species ...

Ecosystem Disrupted Following the Disappearance of Great White Sharks

Mar. 25, 2025 — A new study has uncovered evidence of far-reaching ecosystem consequences following the disappearance of Great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) from False Bay, South Africa. The research spans ...

How Extreme Weather Threatens Nature's Essential Services

Mar. 24, 2025 — A new model suggests that timber production in Minnesota could decrease by half as windstorms intensify with climate ...

Southeast Asia's Fisheries Benefit from Small-Scale, Multispecies Capture

Mar. 21, 2025 — Despite decades of warnings about overfishing, Southeast Asia's capture fisheries have proven remarkably ...

Aotearoa Once Home to Elephant Seals

Mar. 20, 2025 — Southern elephant seals are the 'canary in the coal mine' for the Southern Ocean, offering insight into how the ecosystem may react to future climate change and human impact, new research ...

Good Sphagnum Moss Layer Growth Improves Carbon Sequestration in Restored Peatlands

Mar. 19, 2025 — Researchers measured post-restoration Sphagnum moss layer growth on 18 peatland sites in Finland 10 years after restoration. According to the study, a thick Sphagnum moss layer forms rapidly during ...

Red Coral Colonies Survive a Decade After Being Transplanted in the Medes Islands

Mar. 18, 2025 — The red coral colonies that were transplanted a decade ago on the seabed of the Medes Islands have survived successfully. They are very similar to the original communities and have contributed to the ...

Time Is Not the Driving Influence of Forest Carbon Storage

Mar. 18, 2025 — It is commonly assumed that as forest ecosystems age, they accumulate and store, or 'sequester,' more ...

How a Hummingbird Chick Acts Like a Caterpillar to Survive

Mar. 17, 2025 — For the first time, scientists described a hummingbird chick potentially mimicking a poisonous caterpillar to avoid getting ...

The Long Wait for Bees to Return to Restored Grasslands

Mar. 13, 2025 — Recovered grasslands need more than 75 years of continuous management to regain their biodiversity because specialized pollinators are slow to return. A new finding underscores the importance of ...

Want to Preserve Biodiversity? Go Big

Mar. 12, 2025 — Large, undisturbed forests are better for harboring biodiversity than fragmented landscapes, according to recent research. Ecologists agree that habitat loss and the fragmentation of forests reduces ...

Acoustic Monitoring Network for Birds Enhances Forest Management

Mar. 11, 2025 — A new study using the largest network of microphones to track birds in the United States is providing crucial insights for managing and restoring fire-prone forests across California's Sierra ...

The Unforseen Effects of Melting Glaciers on Arctic Coastal Ecosystems

Mar. 7, 2025 — Researchers found that climate change induced glacial melt increases the heavy metal content and changes the microbiome of habitat-forming brown algae in Arctic fjords. As algae are at the basis of ...

Scientists Develop Advanced Forest Monitoring Systems: Will Forests Monitor Themselves in the Future?

Mar. 7, 2025 — 'Forests are among the most important ecosystems in nature, constantly evolving, yet their monitoring is often delayed,' says an expert. Climate change, pests, and human activity are ...

Adaptability of Some Coral Reef Fish to Rising Temperatures

Mar. 6, 2025 — Researchers have found that reef fish from the Arabian Gulf, the world's hottest sea, exhibit a higher tolerance to temperature fluctuations compared to those from more thermally stable coral ...