Cave-specific conservation and protection actions are essential to protect cave habitats for the continued survival of bats, and ultimately, the well-being of humans.
Many of our planet’s ecosystems depend on the health of soil.
Katya_Ershova/Pixabay
Half of all flowering plants mostly or completely rely on animal pollinators to make seeds. A decline in pollinators could cause major disruptions in natural ecosystems.
Large herbivores like elephants used to roam wide swathes of Europe and Asia.
Heather Wall
Rivers are among the most embattled ecosystems on Earth. Researchers are testing a new, inexpensive way to study river health by using eDNA to count the species that rivers harbor.
The Eurasian beaver is being introduced back into UK landscapes.
Max Pixel
The push for a new environmental crime has attracted high-profile backers including French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis and Greta Thunberg. But we must get the details right.
During a 2015 heat wave, scientists watched as a coral reef died before their eyes. By the end of the century, almost all the world’s corals will be gone if climate change continues at this pace.
A female burying beetle caring for her brood.
Oliver Krueger
When something is free, people use a lot of it. Economists are urging governments to compute values for natural resources – wildlife, plants, air, water – to create motives for protecting them.
Cheetahs in the Serengeti in Tanzania.
A J Plumptre
One-fifth of Earth’s land could be restored to wilderness by reintroducing animals and improving management.
Longleaf pines support one another through mycorrhizae – mutually beneficial relationships between certain fungi and the trees’ roots.
Justin Meissen/Flickr
We may think of plants as passive life forms, but they can cooperate, share resources, send one another warnings, and distance themselves from their communities when survival depends on it.
Giant old trees in the rainforest at Campement de Kloto, Missahoe, Agomé in Togo, West Africa.
Getty Images
This is not an imaginary future dystopia. It’s a scientific projection of Australia under 3°C of global warming – a future we must both strenuously try to avoid, but also prepare for.
A flock of birds flies near Lake Manyara, Tanzania.
Luc Janssens de Bisthoven
Biosphere reserves are the living labs in which people and nature learn how to live and thrive together. Four pilot sites in Africa show the programme’s promise.
In some African countries, lion trophy hunting is legal.
Riaan van den Berg
Debates centred on the role of recreational hunting in supporting nature conservation and local people’s livelihoods are among the most polarising in conservation today.
Iconic ecosystems, from coral reefs to Tasmania’s ancient forests, are collapsing across the continent and into Antarctica. It’s not too late to act — in fact, our lives depend on it.
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University