Games have come a long way since their genesis in the 1970s. Today, games designers consult with ecologists and other experts to create worlds that feel alive and real.
The fossa, Madagascar’s largest predator, is a cat-like carnivore that eats everything from insects to lemurs. Because they are rare and elusive, scientists know very little about them, including how many there are.
Rainforests may have played far more of a role in shaping human evolution than previously thought.
The 2016 Maple fire (photographed in July 2017) reburned young forests that had regenerated after the 1988 Yellowstone fires. More frequent high-severity fires are expected in the future as climate warms, which may change patterns of forest recovery.
Monica Turner
Huge fires roared through Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988, scorching one-third of the park. Since then the park has been a valuable lab for studying how forests recover from fires.
Successive governments have seen the Great Barrier Reef not just as a scientific wonder, but as a channel to further economic development.
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The $444 million awarded to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation has been criticised as a politically calculated move. But governments have been asking what the reef can do for them ever since colonial times.
Down House: the home (and garden) of Charles Darwin.
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Was Darwin inspired by the tropical wildlife of his travels to discover natural selection? Actually, pigeons, worms and barnacles were far more prominent in his thinking.
Smiles all round for Britain’s adders.
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What drives the emergence and disappearance of species? By modeling the fundamental processes of evolution and ecology on geographical scales, new research spotlights topography and climatic shifts.
Chytrid fungus has caused a global “amphibian apocalypse,” killing frogs worldwide. Now some appear to be evolving resistance – but a closely related fungus threatens newts and salamanders.
Some studies show that female lions prefer darker coloured manes to bigger manes.
Flickr/Eric Kilby
People used to think that boy lions had big shaggy manes to protect their necks from being bitten or scratched during fights. But scientists soon realised this idea didn’t make much sense.
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University