Ecology

Certain animals are able to adjust well to environments that have been created or altered by human activity. We live in an age in which urbanization is proceeding at an ever-faster rate, something that also affects fauna. The great tit is a little bird originally suited to a life in... Read more

New research indicates the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) could be devastating to amphibian biodiversity if introduced to North America.Nature Communications has published the findings from a group of researchers at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, the University of Massachusetts-Boston and Washington State University.... Read more

Scientists need to get out of the lab and into the rain, say an interdisciplinary group of researchers led by John T. Van Stan of Cleveland State University. Writing in the journal BioScience, the authors make the case that human observation of storm events (be it rain, snow, or occult... Read more

Marine heatwaves are emerging as a key impact of climate change and pose a particularly significant threat to corals that form the backbone of coral reefs. Researchers have now identified a phenomenon that could help coral reef managers better plan and act for the future.... Read more

Scientists have formally described about 120,000 species of fungus. There might be millions more out there, but fungi are largely hidden. When you think about fungi, you might picture showy mushrooms, but those are just the fungal version of fruit, sprouting when it's time to reproduce. Most of the time,... Read more

As global temperatures rise, trees in colder areas are benefiting from an extended growing season. A longer growing season results in thicker growth rings and, as a result, higher overall wood production.... Read more

Nearly a third of Earth's freshwater resources lie in groundwater—much more than in all lakes, rivers and the atmosphere combined, and exceeded only by the frozen water in polar ice caps. Accordingly, about half of humankind depends on groundwater as a source of drinking water.... Read more

Queen Elizabeth II's record-breaking long reign was exceptional in many ways—not least because England has been ruled by men for most of the last thousand years. Until recently, the crown was passed to the monarch's eldest son and daughters were married off to royals in other countries.... Read more

Have you ever noticed an ant in your home, only to find that a week later the whole colony has moved in? The traps you set up catch only a few of these ants, but soon, the rest of the colony has mysteriously disappeared. Now, a study published in the... Read more

New research shows that butterflies have expanded their ranges over the past 120 years to cope with a warmer climate in Sweden and Finland. Although driven by a warmer climate, range expansions have also been influenced by human land use and vary according to species thermal tolerances and habitat preferences.... Read more

Growing seaweed in the open ocean is widely considered a viable way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but a new study reveals the iron concentration in the open ocean is inadequate to sustain seaweed growth—a fact that scientists say should be part of the ocean afforestation debate.... Read more

Sea sponges are essential to marine ecosystems. They play critical roles in the ocean, as they provide shelter and food to a plethora of marine creatures, recycle nutrients by filtering thousands of liters of sea water daily, and are hosts to microbes that may be the key to some of... Read more

Biologist Kate Wilsterman is amazed by pregnancy. This essential mammalian life process is both complicated and dynamic: In addition to creating the next generation, pregnancy requires changes in nearly every organ of the gestational parent; dramatic changes in physiology; and perhaps most impressively, the growth of an entire organ (the... Read more

Genomic research led by the University of California at Berkeley has looked to uncover the origins and history of desert adaptation in foxes. In a paper, "North African fox genomes show signatures of repeated introgression and adaptation to life in deserts," published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the researchers reveal... Read more

People were breeding scarlet macaws (Ara macao) in, what is today, New Mexico in the 1100s, according to examination of eggshell found at the Old Town archaeological site. The paper is published in the journal PNAS Nexus.... Read more