Forest News

May 9, 2025

Top Headlines

First Fossil Evidence of Endangered Tropical Tree Discovered

May 9, 2025 — Scientists have discovered fossil evidence of an endangered, living tropical tree species. The unprecedented find was made in Brunei, a country on the large island of Borneo, and reveals a critical piece of the ancient history of Asia's rainforests, ...

Just 30 Species of Tree Dominate World's Most Diverse Savanna

May 8, 2025 — Scientists have found that a mere 30 species of trees in the Cerrado -- the world's largest and most floristically diverse savanna -- account for nearly half of all its trees. The 'hyperdominance' by a few species could help researchers understand ...

Pioneering Research Reveals Tree-Mendous Potential of Inexpensive Drones to Help Community Forests Flourish and Unlock Restoration Funding

May 7, 2025 — New research has shown how small, inexpensive drones combined with free, open source software can be used by community forest organizations to calculate and monitor the amount of carbon stored in ...

Replanted Rainforests May Benefit from Termite Transplants

May 6, 2025 — Termites -- infamous for their ability to destroy wood -- are rarely welcomed into rainforests that have been painstakingly replanted. But a new paper suggests that termite transplants may be necessary to help regenerating forests to thrive. ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:50pm EDT

Development, Agriculture Present Risks for Drinking Water Quality

May 6, 2025 — Converting forest land to urban development or agricultural use can present risks to water quality when done near streams or river sources. This study examined data from 15 water treatment plants in ...

New Pests and Diseases Will Cut UK Tree Growth

Apr. 28, 2025 — The arrival of new plant pests and diseases is likely to severely damage UK trees and woodlands in the coming decades, new research ...

Restoring Oil Wells Back to Nature With Moss

Apr. 30, 2025 — In what could represent a milestone in ecological restoration, researchers have implemented a method capable of restoring peatlands at tens of thousands of oil and gas exploration sites in Western ...

World on Course to Trigger Multiple Climate 'Tipping Points' Unless Action Accelerates

Apr. 23, 2025 — Multiple climate 'tipping points' are likely to be triggered if global policies stay on their current course, new research ...

Introduced Trees Are Becoming More Common in the Eastern United States, While Native Diversity Declines

Apr. 21, 2025 — In a new study, researchers used more than 5 million measurements from individual trees across much of eastern North America and showed the rate at ...

Experiment in Floodplain Forest: Using Tree Mortality to Support Oak Regeneration

Apr. 16, 2025 — The pedunculate oaks typical of Leipzig's floodplain forest and other German oak forests are struggling to regenerate in the understorey due to a ...

Declining Insect Biodiversity in the Tropics

Apr. 8, 2025 — Ecologists are investigating the decline of insect populations in the world's tropical forests. Insects, the most abundant and diverse group of animals on Earth, are experiencing alarming declines, ...

Losing Forest Carbon Stocks Could Put Climate Goals out of Reach

Mar. 27, 2025 — In the past, intact forests absorbed 7.8 billion tons of CO2 annually -- about a fifth of all human emissions -- but their carbon storage is increasingly at risk from climate change and human ...

Getting Hit by Lightning Is Good for Some Tropical Trees

Mar. 26, 2025 — Getting zapped with millions of volts of electricity may not sound like a healthy activity, but for some trees, it is. A new study reports that some tropical tree species are not only able to ...

Refining Siberia's Land Cover Data: A Leap Forward for Climate Science

Mar. 25, 2025 — Researchers have developed a highly accurate land cover map for Siberia, providing insights into climate change and predictions. Using advanced machine learning techniques and existing multiple land ...

How Extreme Weather Threatens Nature's Essential Services

Mar. 24, 2025 — A new model suggests that timber production in Minnesota could decrease by half as windstorms intensify with climate ...

Time Is Not the Driving Influence of Forest Carbon Storage

Mar. 18, 2025 — It is commonly assumed that as forest ecosystems age, they accumulate and store, or 'sequester,' more ...

How a Hummingbird Chick Acts Like a Caterpillar to Survive

Mar. 17, 2025 — For the first time, scientists described a hummingbird chick potentially mimicking a poisonous caterpillar to avoid getting ...

Want to Preserve Biodiversity? Go Big

Mar. 12, 2025 — Large, undisturbed forests are better for harboring biodiversity than fragmented landscapes, according to recent research. Ecologists agree that habitat loss and the fragmentation of forests reduces ...

Acoustic Monitoring Network for Birds Enhances Forest Management

Mar. 11, 2025 — A new study using the largest network of microphones to track birds in the United States is providing crucial insights for managing and restoring fire-prone forests across California's Sierra ...

Boreal Forest: Taking Taiga's Temperature

Mar. 11, 2025 — A new study has introduced a powerful tool for analyzing satellite imagery of boreal forests (also known as 'Taiga' in North America), offering unprecedented insights into the health and ...

Scientists Develop Advanced Forest Monitoring Systems: Will Forests Monitor Themselves in the Future?

Mar. 7, 2025 — 'Forests are among the most important ecosystems in nature, constantly evolving, yet their monitoring is often delayed,' says an expert. Climate change, pests, and human activity are ...

Tropical Forests in the Americas Are Struggling to Keep Pace With Climate Change

Mar. 6, 2025 — Tropical rainforests play a vital role in global climate regulation and biodiversity conservation. However, a major new study reveals that forests across the Americas are not adapting quickly enough ...

Plants Struggled for Millions of Years After the World's Worst Climate Catastrophe

Mar. 6, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered how plants responded to catastrophic climate changes 250 million years ago. Their findings reveal the long, drawn-out process of ecosystem recovery following one of the most ...

Satellite Image Analysis Delivers New Insight Into the Functional Diversity of Tropical Forests

Mar. 5, 2025 — Satellite images from space are allowing scientists to delve deeper into the individual functions of different tropical forest canopies with new and surprising results. Understanding tree traits and ...

Sea Otters Help Kelp Forests Recover -- But How Fast Depends on Where They Are

Mar. 3, 2025 — New modeling method helped researchers understand why kelp forests returned more slowly in Southern California than in British ...

Climate Change Increases the Risk of Tree Mortality in Urban Boreal Forests

Feb. 27, 2025 — Climate change poses a particular risk to pine trees growing in dry areas, a new study conducted in an urban recreational forest in Helsinki ...

Researchers Make Recommendations for Promoting Sustainable Development in Mangrove Forest Areas

Feb. 26, 2025 — Although preventing all the consequences of climate change is now impossible, we can adopt policies to mitigate its impact. In a set of policy recommendations, researchers examine the development of ...

Beyond the Burn: Harvesting Dead Wood to Reduce Wildfires and Store Carbon

Feb. 26, 2025 — A century of fire suppression, climate change, and drought has worsened wildfires in the Western U.S. While prescribed burns help reduce fuel, a 'fire deficit' increases wildfire risks, ...

New Spatial Mechanism for the Coexistence of Tree Species

Feb. 26, 2025 — The reason why so many tree species can coexist in species-rich forests has long been a subject of debate in ecology. This question is key to understanding the mechanisms governing the dynamics and ...

Tree Diversity Increases Carbon Sequestration

Feb. 25, 2025 — Forests planted with many different tree species have substantially higher aboveground carbon stocks and greater carbon fluxes than monocultures, shows a study. For the study, researchers analyzed ...

UK Peatland Fires Are Supercharging Carbon Emissions as Climate Change Causes Hotter, Drier Summers

Feb. 21, 2025 — Experts say a focus on re-wetting our parched peat would significantly dampen down the UK's fire-driven carbon emissions and help mitigate against climate ...

Scientists Decode DNA of White Oak Tree

Feb. 20, 2025 — Highly valued economically, ecologically and culturally, the white oak (Quercus alba) is a keystone forest species and is one of the most abundant trees across much of eastern North America. It also ...

Protected Habitats Aren't Enough to Save Endangered Species, Study Finds

Feb. 13, 2025 — In tropical forests, endangered species inside protected habitats are still in danger from threats from beyond their sanctuaries, according to a new ...

Restoring Wildlife Habitats in Wealthy Nations Could Drive Extinctions in Species-Rich Regions, Experts Warn

Feb. 13, 2025 — Researchers call on the international community to recognize and start tackling the 'biodiversity ...