Ecosystems News

November 16, 2025

Top Headlines

Microbes That Breathe Rust Could Help Save Earth’s Oceans

Nov. 9, 2025 Researchers from the University of Vienna discovered MISO bacteria that use iron minerals to oxidize toxic sulfide, creating energy and producing sulfate. This biological process reshapes how scientists understand global sulfur and iron cycles. By ...

9,000-year-old Ice Melt Shows How Fast Antarctica Can Fall Apart

Nov. 9, 2025 Around 9,000 years ago, East Antarctica went through a dramatic meltdown that was anything but isolated. Scientists have discovered that warm deep ocean water surged beneath the region’s floating ice shelves, causing them to collapse and ...

Earth Has Hit Its First Climate Tipping Point, Scientists Warn

Oct. 29, 2025 Global scientists warn that humanity is on the verge of crossing irreversible climate thresholds, with coral reefs already at their tipping point and polar ice sheets possibly beyond recovery. The Global Tipping Points Report 2025 reveals how rising ...

Melting Ice Is Hiding a Massive Climate Secret Beneath Antarctica

Oct. 27, 2025 The Southern Ocean absorbs nearly half of all ocean-stored human CO2, but its future role is uncertain. Despite models predicting a decline, researchers found that freshening surface waters are currently keeping deep CO2 trapped below. This ...

Earth’s Climate Just Crossed a Line We Can’t Ignore

Oct. 13, 2025 Humanity has reached the first Earth system tipping point, the widespread death of warm-water coral reefs, marking the beginning of irreversible planetary shifts. As global temperatures move beyond 1.5°C, the world risks cascading crises such as ...

They’re Smaller Than Dust, but Crucial for Earth’s Climate

Oct. 10, 2025 Coccolithophores, tiny planktonic architects of Earth’s climate, capture carbon, produce oxygen, and leave behind geological records that chronicle our planet’s history. European scientists are uniting to honor them with International ...

Record Amazon Fires Release More Carbon Than an Entire Country

Oct. 8, 2025 The Amazon has suffered its most destructive fire season in more than two decades, releasing a staggering 791 million tons of carbon dioxide—on par with Germany’s annual emissions. Scientists found that for the first time, fire-driven ...

Ocean Heatwaves Are Breaking Earth’s Hidden Climate Engine

Oct. 7, 2025 Marine heatwaves can jam the ocean’s natural carbon conveyor belt, preventing carbon from reaching the deep sea. Researchers studying two major heatwaves in the Gulf of Alaska found that plankton shifts caused carbon to build up near the surface ...

A Monster Seaweed Bloom Is Taking over the Atlantic

Sep. 1, 2025 Sargassum has escaped the Sargasso Sea and exploded across the Atlantic, forming the massive Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt. Fueled by nutrient runoff, Amazon outflows, and climate events, these blooms now reshape ecosystems, economies, and ...

Scientists Stunned as Strange Islands and Hidden Springs Appear in the Great Salt Lake

Aug. 31, 2025 As the Great Salt Lake shrinks, scientists are uncovering mysterious groundwater-fed oases hidden beneath its drying lakebed. Reed-covered mounds and strange surface disturbances hint at a vast ...

The Surprising Reason Timber Plantations Explode Into Megafires

Aug. 21, 2025 Industrial forests, packed with evenly spaced trees, face nearly 50% higher odds of megafires than public lands. A lidar-powered study of California’s Sierra Nevada reveals how dense plantations feed fire severity, but also shows that proactive ...

Satellites Just Revealed a Hidden Global Water Crisis—and It’s Worse Than Melting Ice

July 27, 2025 For over two decades, satellites have quietly documented a major crisis unfolding beneath our feet: Earth's continents are drying out at unprecedented rates. Fueled by climate change, groundwater ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:18pm EST

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Small Currents, Big Impact: Satellite Breakthrough Reveals Hidden Ocean Forces

May 30, 2025 While scientists have long studied currents of large eddies, the smaller ones -- called submesoscale eddies -- are notoriously difficult to detect. ...

2021's Hurricane Ida Could Have Been Even Worse for NYC

May 30, 2025 Hurricane Ida wreaked an estimated $75 billion in total damages and was responsible for 112 fatalities -- including 32 in New Jersey and 16 in New York state. Yet the hurricane could have been even ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 soils adversely affects 500 million people around the ...

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 ...

MIT Scientists Develop Tool That Makes Underwater Scenes Crystal Clear

May 21, 2025 MIT and WHOI scientists have unveiled SeaSplat, a system that makes underwater scenes look as if the ocean had been drained away. The tool cancels out water’s distortions and builds true-color 3D ...

May 21, 2025 Hurricane winds are a major contributor to storm-related losses for people living in the southeastern coastal states. As the global temperature continues to rise, scientists predict that hurricanes ...

Songbirds' Great Risk Results in Great Genetic Reward

May 21, 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 ...

Native Turtles Return to Yosemite After Removal of Invasive Bullfrogs

May 20, 2025 Yosemite’s ponds used to echo with the booming calls of invasive bullfrogs, which devoured young turtles, newts, birds, and more. Now, with bullfrogs nearly gone, native sounds are returning—and ...

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 ...

Engineers Tackle Sunlight Intermittency in Solar Desalination

May 14, 2025 A team of engineers has developed a system that could transform desalination practices, making the process more adaptable, resilient and cheaper. The new system is powered by sunlight and uses a ...

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 ...

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 In a groundbreaking discovery in Brunei, scientists have found two-million-year-old fossils of Dryobalanops rappa—an endangered tropical tree that still lives today. The find marks the first fossil ...

Red Alert for Our Closest Relatives

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

Study of Türkiye Gold Mine Landslide Highlights Need for Future Monitoring

May 8, 2025 A new analysis of a fatal landslide that occurred on 13 February 2024 at the pler Gold Mine in Turkiye reveals that the site of the landslide had been slowly moving for at least four years prior to ...

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 ...

Juvenile Salmon Roam Between Salt and Fresh Water While Exploring Coast and Rivers, New Research Finds

Apr. 30, 2025 The well-known salmon life cycle has long been described as going only one way at a time. Juvenile salmon hatch and swim down rivers to the ocean, where they grow and mature before returning to the ...

'Scratching' More Than the Ocean's Surface to Map Global Microplastic Movement

Apr. 30, 2025 An international team of scientists has moved beyond just 'scratching the surface,' to understand how microplastics move through and impact the global ocean. For the first time, scientists ...

Extreme Monsoon Changes Threaten the Bay of Bengal's Role as a Critical Food Source

Apr. 28, 2025 New research has revealed that expected, extreme changes in India's summer monsoon could drastically hamper the Bay of Bengal's ability to support a crucial element of the region's ...