Ecology Research News

April 23, 2024

Top Headlines

Invasive Species Sound Off About Impending Ecosystem Changes

Apr. 20, 2024 — Anticipating changes to ecosystems is often at best an educated guess, but what if there was a way to better tune into possible changes occurring? Researchers have discovered that the silent growth of non-native invasive plants can affect the ...

Lemur's Lament: When One Vulnerable Species Stalks Another

Apr. 19, 2024 — What can be done when one threatened animal kills another? Scientists studying critically endangered lemurs in Madagascar confronted this difficult reality when they witnessed attacks on lemurs by another vulnerable species, a carnivore called a ...

Marine Microbial Populations: Potential Sensors of the Global Change in the Ocean

Apr. 18, 2024 — Animal and plant populations have been extensively studied, which has helped to understand ecosystem processes and evolutionary adaptations. However, this has not been the case with microbial ...

Unique Field Study Shows How Climate Change Affects Fire-Impacted Forests

Apr. 17, 2024 — During the unusually dry year of 2018, Sweden was hit by numerous forest fires. A research team has investigated how climate change affects recently burnt boreal forests and their ability to absorb carbon ...

Latest Headlines

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Coral Reef Microbes Point to New Way to Assess Ecosystem Health

Apr. 16, 2024 — A new study shows that ocean acidification is changing the mix of microbes in coral reef systems, which can be used to assess ecosystem ...

Tropical Forests Can't Recover Naturally Without Fruit-Eating Birds

Apr. 15, 2024 — Natural forest regeneration is hailed as a cost-effective way to restore biodiversity and sequester carbon. However, the fragmentation of tropical forests has restricted the movement of large birds ...

Where Have All the Right Whales Gone?

Apr. 12, 2024 — Marine researchers have mapped the density of one of the most endangered large whale species worldwide, the North Atlantic right whale, using new data to help avoid right whales' harmful exposure to ...

Geobiology: New Placozoan Habitat Discovered

Apr. 11, 2024 — Traces of DNA in the stomachs of predatory snails give a team og geobiologists new insights into the ecology of ...

Ants in Colorado Are on the Move Due to Climate Change

Apr. 10, 2024 — Ant species living in Boulder's foothills have shifted their habitat over the last six decades, potentially affecting local ecosystems, suggests a new ...

Deforestation Harms Biodiversity of the Amazon's Perfume-Loving Orchid Bees

Apr. 10, 2024 — A survey of orchid bees in the Brazilian Amazon, carried out in the 1990s, is shedding new light the impact of deforestation on the scent-collecting pollinators, which some view as bellwethers of ...

'Teacher Toads' Can Save Native Animals from Toxic Cane Toads

Apr. 9, 2024 — Scientists from Macquarie University have come up with an innovative way to stop cane toads killing native wildlife by training goannas to avoid eating the deadly ...

Impact of Climate Change on Marine Life Much Bigger Than Previously Known

Apr. 9, 2024 — Fish and invertebrate animals are far more affected by warmer and more acidic seawater than was previously known. The big gain of the new method is that more details become known about effects of ...

Humans Can Increase Biodiversity, Archaeological Study Shows

Apr. 9, 2024 — Through the ages, the presence of humans has increased the heterogeneity and complexity of ecosystems and has often had a positive effect on their ...

eDNA Methods Give a Real-Time Look at Coral Reef Health

Apr. 5, 2024 — The study underscores the crucial role of microbes in maintaining coral reef health, akin to the human gut microbiome. Hurricanes and disease outbreaks affect coral reef water microbial communities, ...

Common Loons Threatened by Declining Water Clarity

Apr. 5, 2024 — The Common Loon, an icon of the northern wilderness, is under threat from climate change due to reduced water clarity, according to a new study. The study followed up an earlier paper that showed ...

Four in Five Bird Species Cannot Tolerate Intense Human Pressures

Apr. 5, 2024 — In a recent study, researchers found that 78% of the world's bird species do not thrive in the most modified human-dominated environments. These species are also most likely to have declining ...

What Four Decades of Canned Salmon Reveal About Marine Food Webs

Apr. 4, 2024 — Researchers have shown that levels of anisakid worms -- a common marine parasite -- rose in two salmon species in the Gulf of Alaska and Bristol Bay over a 42-year period. The team discovered this by ...

Groundbreaking Research in Groundwater's Role in Ecosystem Sustainability

Apr. 3, 2024 — Until now, groundwater -- a critical water resource around the globe, especially in dry regions -- has been largely unstudied in its importance and role in sustaining ecosystems. New groundbreaking ...

Older Trees Help to Protect an Endangered Species

Apr. 2, 2024 — The oldest trees in the forest help to prevent the disappearance of endangered species in the natural environment, according to a new study. This is the case of the wolf lichen -- threatened ...

Melting Glaciers in a Warmer Climate Provide New Ground for Invasive Species

Apr. 1, 2024 — In 2022 and 2023, biologists from research institutes in the UK and the Falkland Islands led two expeditions to South Georgia to study the impacts of invasive species on this cold and rugged ...

Researchers Find Energy Development and Tree Encroachment Impact Wyoming Pronghorn

Mar. 26, 2024 — While Wyoming is home to some of North America's most abundant populations of pronghorn that have largely been stable in recent years, a new analysis shows that many herds are experiencing ...

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Species Diversity Is Directly Correlated With Productivity in Eastern U.S. Forests

Mar. 25, 2024 — When officials make tough calls on which areas to prioritize for conservation, biodiversity is often their top consideration. But there are several types of diversity, and not all of them overlap ...

'Winners and Losers' as Global Warming Forces Plants Uphill

Mar. 25, 2024 — Some plant species will 'win' and others will 'lose' as global warming forces them to move uphill, new research ...

Species Diversity Promotes Ecosystem Stability

Mar. 21, 2024 — What maintains stability within an ecosystem and prevents a single best competitor from displacing other species from a community? Does ecosystem stability depend upon the presence of a wide variety ...

Forest, Stream Habitats Keep Energy Exchanges in Balance, Global Team Finds

Mar. 21, 2024 — Forests and streams are separate but linked ecosystems, existing side by side, with energy and nutrients crossing their porous borders and flowing back and forth between them. For example, leaves ...

Scientists Weigh Up Current Status of Blue Whale Populations Around the World

Mar. 20, 2024 — The largest living animal, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) which averages about 27 meters in length, has slowly recovered from whaling only to face the rising challenges of global warming, ...

Monitoring and Measuring Biodiversity Require More Than Just Numbers; Scientists Advocate for Change

Mar. 20, 2024 — Scientists advocate for change to promote standardized practices in the field -- a practice that has been missing from the ...

Researchers Investigate How Freshwater Diatoms Stay in the Light

Mar. 20, 2024 — Researchers sought to understand how diatoms -- microscopic, photosynthetic algae that make up an estimated 20 percent of global carbon sequestration and oxygen production -- are able to bloom in an ...

Why Do Tree Frogs Lay Their Eggs on the Ground?

Mar. 19, 2024 — A curious aspect of tree frogs is that they often lay their eggs on the ground where the risk of predation by natural enemies is greater than in the trees where they live. A research team suggested ...

Artificial Streams Reveal How Drought Shapes California's Alpine Ecosystems

Mar. 18, 2024 — Researchers have used a series of artificial stream channels to mimic the behavior of headwater creeks under future climate change scenarios. They found that drier conditions shifted the life cycles ...

Arctic Nightlife: Seabird Colony Bursts With Sound at Night

Mar. 15, 2024 — Acoustic recordings of a colony of little auks reveal their nocturnal activities and offer valuable monitoring means for avian biology in the ...

Marine Heat Waves Disrupt the Ocean Food Web in the Northeast Pacific Ocean

Mar. 13, 2024 — Marine heat waves in the northeast Pacific Ocean create ongoing and complex disruptions of the ocean food web that may benefit some species but threaten the future of many others, a new study has ...

Rainforest's Next Generation of Trees Threatened 30 Years After Logging

Mar. 12, 2024 — Rainforest seedlings are more likely to survive in natural forests than in places where logging has happened -- even if tree restoration projects have taken place, new research ...

Halloween Toy Among Plastics Swallowed by Sea Turtles

Mar. 11, 2024 — A Halloween toy was among hundreds of plastic items found in the guts of dead sea turtles in the Mediterranean, a new study ...