Permanently protecting large, mature forests is a faster and cheaper way to stabilize Earth’s climate than complex carbon capture and storage schemes, and more effective than planting new trees.
As you swelter during this heatwave, it may not be all bad news for our urban and natural environments. Sometimes, positive outcomes arise when and where we least expect them.
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.
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 team of researchers found the southernmost tree and forest on Earth at the extreme tip of South America. Wind limits where trees grow on Isla Hornos and those wind patterns are shifting.
We analysed 210,000 tree ring records from 80 different species, and found the trade off between growth and lifespan may neutralise the forest carbon sink.
With trees infested by the emerald ash borer deemed essentially worthless, a team of designers wanted to see if the decaying wood could be repurposed as a building material.