Ecosystems
- Ecosystems
The Buzz over Coffee
Most people consider the continued spread of Africanized honeybees in the Americas as horrifying news. Nicknamed killer bees, these notorious social insects rile into stinging mobs with little provocation. But new research finds evidence that these irritable insects have been performing a hitherto unrecognized service for people around the world. They’ve helped keep down the […]
- Ecosystems
Plight of the Iguanas: Hidden die-off followed Galápagos spill
Residues of oil spilled in the Galapágos Islands in January 2001 may have caused a 60 percent decline in one island's colony of marine iguanas.
- Ecosystems
Famine reveals incredible shrinking iguanas
Marine iguanas in the Galápagos Islands are the first vertebrates known to reduce their size during a food shortage and then regrow to their original body lengths.
- Ecosystems
Deprived of Darkness
From anecdotal reports of little-studied phenomena, researchers suspect that artificial night lighting disrupts the physiology and behavior of nocturnal animals.
- Ecosystems
Climate Upsets: Big model predicts many new neighbors
The biggest effects of climate change during the next 50 years may not be extinctions but major reshuffling of the species in local communities.
- Ecosystems
Are They Really Extinct?
A few optimists keep looking for species that might already have gone extinct.
- Ecosystems
Cryptic Invasion: Native reeds harbor aggressive alien
A mild-mannered reed native to the United States is getting blamed for the mayhem caused by an evil twin.
- Ecosystems
Biodiversity Hot Spots: Top 10 sea locales make sobering list
Biologists have identified the world's most vulnerable coral reefs, each with organisms found nowhere else and threatened by human influence.
- Ecosystems
Genetic lynx: North American lynx make one huge family
A new study of lynx in North America suggests the animals interbreed widely, sometimes with populations thousands of kilometers away.
- Ecosystems
Tadpole Science Gets Its Legs . . .
The amazingly complex tadpole now shines in ecological studies.
- Ecosystems
Mistletoe, of all things, helps juniper trees
A mistletoe that grows on junipers may do the trees a favor by attracting birds that spread the junipers' seeds.
- Ecosystems
Move over, Leo. Give me more elbow room
The average size of the largest land animals on each of 25 oceanic islands and five continents strongly depends on the land area there.
