Ecosystems

Ecosystems

Tallgrass Prairie

The Openlands Project played a key role in converting the former Joliet Arsenal in Illinois into the first national tallgrass prairie. This Web site traces the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie’s history and provides a variety of classroom activities for students in grades 1 to 12. Lessons include plant investigations, predator and prey relationships, prairie climate, […]

Ecosystems

Empty Nets

New research has begun challenging long-held assumptions about the consequences for fish stocks of harvesting the biggest fish first.

Ecosystems

Pesticide makes bees bumble

The pesticide spinosad, previously thought safe for bees, may damage their ability to forage for nectar.

Ecosystems

Decades of Dinner

Sunken whale carcasses support unique marine ecosystems that display stages of succession and change, just as land ecosystems do.

Ecosystems

Where Tuna Go: Atlantic fish mix for feeding, not spawning

The largest high-tech tag study yet of Atlantic bluefin tuna suggests that two groups mix on feeding grounds but spawn on opposite sides of the ocean.

Ecosystems

Ambush Ants: Beware the moldy patch on that branch

Tiny tropical ants build shaggy platforms on plants and hide underneath them, poised to reach out and capture insects that may be far larger than themselves.

Ecosystems

Quick Fix: How invasive seaweed repairs its wounds

Scientists have discerned the chemistry underlying the rapid wound-healing process in an invasive green alga that is wreaking havoc in the Mediterranean Sea.

Ecosystems

Return of the Wetlands? Restoration possible for some Iraqi marshes

Field studies conducted in Iraq last year suggest that some of the region's ecologically devastated marshes could be returned to health.

Ecosystems

Bivalve Takeover: Once-benign clams boom after crab influx

European green crabs invading a California bay have triggered a population explosion of a previously marginal clam.

Ecosystems

Fallout Feast: Vent crabs survive on victims of plume

Researchers in Taiwan propose an explanation for how so many crabs can survive at shallow-water hydrothermal vents.

Ecosystems

The Birds Are Falling: Avian losses could hit ecosystems hard

If many bird populations dip toward extinction in the coming century, widespread harm could come to ecosystems that depend on these birds.

Ecosystems

One-Celled Socialites

A wave of research on the social lives of bacteria offers insights into the evolution of cooperation and may lead to medical breakthroughs that neutralize virulent bacterial strains.