Ecosystems
- Ecosystems
Burrowing birds create pockets of rich plant life in a desert landscape
Mounds of sand dug out by birds are hot spots for plants in Peru’s Atacama Desert, possibly providing a sheltered and moist area for seed germination.
- Climate
Malin Pinsky seeks to explain how climate change alters ocean life
As global temperatures rise, Malin Pinsky’s research attempts to understand how marine ecosystems are changing and why.
- Life
Connecting our dwindling natural habitats could help preserve plant diversity
As pristine habitats shrink worldwide, a massive, 18-year experiment suggests that linking up what's left with natural corridors could help ecosystems retain plant diversity.
- Climate
How climate change is already altering oceans and ice, and what’s to come
A new IPCC report gives the lowdown on how climate change is already wreaking havoc on Earth’s oceans and frozen regions, and how much worse things could get.
- Life
We’ve lost 3 billion birds since 1970 in North America
Scientists estimated the change in total number of individual birds since 1970. They found profound losses spread among rare and common birds alike.
- Animals
Why one biologist chases hurricanes to study spider evolution
For more rigorous spider data, Jonathan Pruitt rushes into the paths of hurricanes.
- Life
A mussel poop diet could fuel invasive carp’s spread across Lake Michigan
Asian carp, just a human-made waterway away from reaching Lake Michigan, could live in much more of the lake than previously thought.
- Neuroscience
Plants don’t have feelings and aren’t conscious, a biologist argues
The rise of the field of “plant neurobiology” has this scientist and his colleagues pushing back.
- Earth
Decades of dumping acid suggest acid rain may make trees thirstier
Acidified soil loses calcium, which can affect trees’ ability to hang on to water.
- Animals
A deadly fungus gives ‘zombie’ ants a case of lockjaw
Clues left on infected ant jaws may reveal how the ‘zombie-ant-fungus’ contracts ant muscles to make their death grip.
- Ecosystems
Planting trees could buy more time to fight climate change than thought
Earth has nearly a billion hectares suitable for new forests to start trapping carbon, a study finds.
- Oceans
A mysterious coral disease is ravaging Caribbean reefs
Scientists are racing to learn what’s behind a disease that’s “annihilating” whole coral species in hopes of stopping it.
