Tropical forests are disappearing at an alarming clip across the globe. As lush land is cleared for agriculture, climate-warming carbon gets released and biodiversity declines. But when farmland is left alone,…
Category: Ecosystems
Baleen whales eat (and poop) a lot more than we realized
Whalers have plucked giant whales from the sea for much of the last century, reducing their numbers by up to 99 percent for certain species. Some scientists thought that krill…
Fires may have affected up to 85 percent of threatened Amazon species
Much of the Amazon’s biodiversity is under fire — literally. In the last two decades, deforestation and forest fires have encroached on the ranges of thousands of plant and animal…
Female hummingbirds may sport flashy feathers to avoid being harassed
Some female hummingbirds don flashy feathers to avoid being bothered by other hummingbirds, a new study suggests. Male white-necked jacobin hummingbirds (Florisuga mellivora) have bright blue heads and throats. Females…
An incredibly resilient coral in the Great Barrier Reef offers hope for the future
A coral the size of a carousel is the widest known in the Great Barrier Reef. Found just off the coast of Goolboodi Island in Northeast Australia, this reef-building Porites…
An ecologist’s new book gets at the root of trees’ social lives
Finding the Mother TreeSuzanne SimardKnopf, $28.95 Opening Suzanne Simard’s new book, Finding the Mother Tree, I expected to learn about the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. I had…
As ‘phantom rivers’ roar, birds and bats change their hunting habits
For two summers in a rugged corner of Idaho’s Pioneer Mountains, the roar of rushing white water filled the air. But where the loud sounds prevailed, only gentle streams flowed…
Wild donkeys and horses engineer water holes that help other species
Water drives the rhythms of desert life, but animals aren’t always helpless against the whims of weather. In the American Southwest, wild donkeys and horses often dig into the dusty…
Only 3 percent of Earth’s land hasn’t been marred by humans
The Serengeti looks largely like it did hundreds of years ago. Lions, hyenas and other top predators still stalk herds of wildebeests over a million strong, preventing them from eating…
Wildfires launch microbes into the air. How big of a health risk is that?
As climate change brings more wildfires to the western United States, a rare fungal infection has also been on the rise. Valley fever is up more than sixfold in Arizona…
