South Africa’s Proteaceae family, makes up a part of fynbos, a floral region with plants unique to South Africa Cape Town’s Table Mountain National Park.
Shutterstock
Member of the Climate Council this week returned to one of the areas of the Great Barrier Reef that was worst affected by this year’s coral bleaching. What they found was far from encouraging.
Overfishing can teach us valuable lessons about ecosystem resilience.
Andreas Altenberger/Shutterstock.com
Large-scale natural experiments such as oil spills, tsunamis and climate change are things you wouldn’t want to do on purpose. But that doesn’t mean they’re not scientifically useful experiments too.
The Leuser ecosystem in northern Sumatra is home to some of the world’s rarest and best-loved animals. Thanks to a new government moratorium on land clearing, conservationists have enjoyed a big win.
Alpine meadows are a pretty rare sight in Australia.
Colin Totterdell
The alpine landscapes of Australia’s southeast and Tasmania are home to hundreds of rare plants and animals. They’re healthy for now, but need careful looking after.
They might be eating your home, but termites play a vital role in ecosystems.
Termite image from www.shutterstock.com
Termite damage costs Australian homes at least a billion dollars each year – but they are absolutely vital for ecosystems.
Bleached coral can take on luminously beautiful pink and purple hues - but don’t be deceived, these corals are under stress.
Justin Marshall/coralwatch.org
The bleaching hitting the Great Barrier Reef not only harms corals. As these close-up photos show, it also deprives many other species of a home and livelihood.
Australia’s defence forces manage huge swathes of land which are home to valuable ecosystems. The new defence white paper finally acknowledges the importance of looking after them.
Extreme weather could trigger ecosystem collapse, including mass tree deaths.
Dead tree image from www.shutterstock.com
Extreme weather will affect people and animals, as well as whole ecosystems. Research using satellites shows that ecosystems worldwide are vulnerable to collapse.
A tree house used to observe the Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador which has made a point of developing ecotourism to boost economic growth.
Reuters/Gary Granja
Australia may have reputation for vast areas of wilderness, but in reality the continent’s ecosystems have been chopped and diced. Now we need to protect what’s left.
Silver Lake, Wasatch watershed, Utah.
Bhaskar Vira
With a future of droughts looming for the US West, Utah’s Wasatch watershed offers a good model that combines conservation with nature-based recreation.
Viruses are not all bad. In fact, many ecosystems would not function without them.
niaid/flickr
Rising carbon dioxide levels are making plants grow faster, sucking up more water and reducing river flows in many agriculturally important areas of Australia, according to new research.
Dam useful: what have beavers done for you lately?
Famartin/Wikimedia Commons
Listing the value of bees, beavers and others on the pages of the world’s financial press helps to show that ecosystems deliver benefits worth staggering amounts of money - yet we scarcely keep track of it.
The modern emphasis on sanitation has a role in our shrinking microbial populations.
Wellcome Images/Flickr
Human activities have altered whole ecosystems with declines in species diversity, extinctions and the introduction of weeds and pests. But it’s not just the outside world we’re harming.
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University