Entomologists wonder if the insects currently pollinating farmed cacao are the right ones for the task.
A volunteer looks for waterbirds at Point Reyes National Seashore in California during the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count.
Kerry W/Flickr
COVID-19 kept many scientists from doing field research in 2020, which means that important records will have data gaps. But volunteers are helping to plug some of those holes.
In 1935 Aldo Leopold bought a depleted Wisconsin farm and restored it to prairie grassland.
Bill Hall, AOC Solutions/USFWS/Flickr
Jan. 11 marks the birthday of conservationist Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), who called for thinking about land as a living community to protect, not a resource to exploit.
Our study is the first to research the impact of online misinformation on biological invasions.
The sequoias that live on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California are the largest trees in the world by volume.
Erin Donalson/EyeEm via Getty Images
In the Amazon, beetles and flowering trees have developed a tight bond. Hundreds of beetle species thrive off of and pollinate blossoms, helping to maintain some of the highest biodiversity on Earth.
Australia’s dingo fences, built to protect livestock from wild dogs, stretch for thousands of kilometers.
Marian Deschain/Wikimedia
Millions of miles of fences crisscross the Earth’s surface. They divide ecosystems and affect wild species in ways that often are harmful, but are virtually unstudied.
Pardalotes are quintessentially Australian birds, industrious, beautiful and strange. They have adapted to our environment but we are corroding the places in which they live.
The red salamander (Pseudotriton ruber) is a species endemic to the United States.
Betty4240/iStock via Getty Images
The Bsal fungus is not yet here in North America, or any place in the Western Hemisphere, but there is concern that the pet trade is the most likely route for introduction here.
A clapper rail with a fiddler crab in its bill.
Michael Gray
Birds found along the Gulf Coast have evolved to ride out hurricanes and tropical storms. But with development degrading the marshes where they live, it’s getting harder for them to bounce back.
Eelgrasses covered with small snails, which keep the leaves clean by feeding on algae that live on them.
Jonathan Lefcheck
Healthy seagrasses form underwater meadows teeming with fish and shellfish. A successful large-scale restoration project in Virginia could become a model for reseeding damaged seagrass beds worldwide.
In the Pacific Northwest, even though there are huge variations in environment, the Douglas fir grows everywhere.
NASA/NOAA
Local adaptation allows plants and animals to thrive in a diversity of places. Sometimes adaptation sharpens patterns of where organisms live, but 85% of the time, it creates a more homogeneous world.
A snapshot of the rich plant diversity in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.
Gui Becker
The effect of a warmer climate on ecosystems and large and small vertebrates is being widely studied. But warmer temperatures seem to alter the microbes that live in and on these animals and plants.
Nature’s specialists have few and unique relationships with other species. They are most vulnerable in warming habitats.
Noicherrybeans/Shutterstock
Lee Smee, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi e Joseph W. Reustle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Hurricane Harvey destroyed the fishing infrastructure of Aransas Bay and reduced fishing by 80% over the following year. This removed humans from the trophic cascade and whole food webs changed.
The Texas frosted elfin (Callophrys irus hadros), a small butterfly subspecies found only in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, has lost most of its prairie habitat and is thought to have dramatically declined over the last century.
Matthew D. Moran
Recent reports of dramatic declines in insect populations have sparked concern about an ‘insect apocalypse.’ But a new analysis of data from sites across North America suggests the case isn’t proven.
A boomslang eating a bullfrog.
Provided by author/ G Cusins
Social media has proved to be a helpful source of observations of snakes feeding. Knowing more about their diet is useful because it’s linked to their venom biochemistry.
Reducing deforestation of tropical forests and supporting the communities that live there can reduce the risk of future pandemics.
AFP via Getty Images
A new study estimates that $22 billion to $30 billion dollars per year needs to be spent to maintain forests and reduce the likelihood of a pathogen jumping from wildlife to humans.
Swarms of locusts are seen on a tree in a residential area in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta on June 12, 2020.
BANARAS KHAN/AFP via Getty Images
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University