Biodiversity News

March 30, 2025

Top Headlines

Global Patterns in Seed Plant Distribution Over Millions of Years

Mar. 28, 2025 — Why do some plants thrive in specific regions but not in others? A study explores the factors shaping plant distributions and how these patterns have changed over millions of years. Analyzing nearly 270,000 seed plant species worldwide, the research ...

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 activities such as deforestation. A new study shows that ...

Coral Diseases and Water Quality Play a Key Role for Coral Restoration and Survival Efforts

Mar. 26, 2025 — Coral diseases, particularly in the Caribbean, have caused major declines in coral populations, especially affecting staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) and Elkhorn (A. palmata) corals, which play a ...

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 tolerate lightning strikes, but benefit from them. The ...

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Introduced Pacific Oysters Provide Biodiversity Benefits in Port River

Mar. 24, 2025 — The introduction of exotic species can pose significant challenges in the sustainable management of coastal ecosystems, yet researchers have found that Pacific oysters introduced to the Port River in ...

How Elephants Plan Their Journeys: New Study Reveals Energy-Saving Strategies

Mar. 26, 2025 — A new study has revealed that African Elephants have an extraordinary ability to meet their colossal food requirements as efficiently as possible. ...

The Devastating Human Impact on Biodiversity

Mar. 26, 2025 — Humans are having a highly detrimental impact on biodiversity worldwide. Not only is the number of species declining, but the composition of species communities is also changing. This is one of the ...

Ecosystem Disrupted Following the Disappearance of Great White Sharks

Mar. 25, 2025 — A new study has uncovered evidence of far-reaching ecosystem consequences following the disappearance of Great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) from False Bay, South Africa. The research spans ...

Southeast Asia's Fisheries Benefit from Small-Scale, Multispecies Capture

Mar. 21, 2025 — Despite decades of warnings about overfishing, Southeast Asia's capture fisheries have proven remarkably ...

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 ...

Red Coral Colonies Survive a Decade After Being Transplanted in the Medes Islands

Mar. 18, 2025 — The red coral colonies that were transplanted a decade ago on the seabed of the Medes Islands have survived successfully. They are very similar to ...

Conservation Efforts Are Bringing Species Back from the Brink, Even as Overall Biodiversity Falls

Mar. 18, 2025 — A major review of over 67,000 animal species has found that while the natural world continues to face a biodiversity crisis, targeted conservation ...

The Long Wait for Bees to Return to Restored Grasslands

Mar. 13, 2025 — Recovered grasslands need more than 75 years of continuous management to regain their biodiversity because specialized pollinators are slow to return. A new finding underscores the importance of ...

Brown Trout Proven to Successfully Navigate Beaver Dams

Mar. 13, 2025 — A groundbreaking study has revealed that brown trout can successfully navigate beaver dams -- obstacles which were previously thought to pose a significant barrier to their ...

Ecologists Document Utah's Bee Species and Say Beehive State Is Rich in Bee Diversity

Mar. 25, 2025 — Understanding bee distributions is essential to protecting these vital pollinators. Since conservation efforts and policies are often made at the state level, maintaining state-specific bee species ...

Conservation Efforts Analysis Reveals Which Actions Are Most Helpful for Endangered Species Status

Mar. 18, 2025 — Targeted conservation actions are essential to prevent wildlife extinctions, but more efforts are needed to fully recover biodiversity, according to a new ...

New Name for One of the World's Rarest Rhinoceroses

Mar. 13, 2025 — A recent study has reclassified the species commonly known as the Javan rhinoceros, proposing a more precise scientific name: Eurhinoceros sondaicus. The research highlights key differences in body ...

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 ...

Common Approaches for Assessing Business Impact on Biodiversity Are Powerful, but Often Insufficient for Strategy Design

Mar. 10, 2025 — A study has determined that the widely used tools available to businesses for assessing their biodiversity impacts depend on broad assumptions and can have large uncertainties that are poorly ...

Nearly Half of Popular Tropical Plant Group Related to Birds-of-Paradise and Bananas Are Threatened With Extinction

Mar. 7, 2025 — A new analysis reveals that nearly half of the genus Heliconia, a group of tropical plants popular for their bright, beak-shaped flowers, are threatened with ...

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 ...

Adaptability of Some Coral Reef Fish to Rising Temperatures

Mar. 6, 2025 — Researchers have found that reef fish from the Arabian Gulf, the world's hottest sea, exhibit a higher tolerance to temperature fluctuations compared to those from more thermally stable coral ...

Caribou Migration Patterns Are Shrinking

Mar. 5, 2025 — The study shows caribou herds changed their migratory duration, distance or elevation over 35 years of radio tag ...

Footprints of Deep-Sea Mining

Mar. 5, 2025 — Mining of polymetallic nodules from the seabed might lead to significant and long-lasting ecological changes -- both in the mined area, where surface sediments and the fauna living in and on it are ...

The Pot Is Already Boiling for 2% of the World's Amphibians

Mar. 5, 2025 — Amphibians are increasingly vulnerable to global warming, according to new ...

Study Reveals How Rising Temperatures Could Lead to Population Crashes

Mar. 4, 2025 — Researchers have uncovered a critical link between rising temperatures and declines in a species' population, shedding new light on how global warming threatens natural ecosystems. The study ...

Who Gets the Lion's Share? Ecologists Highlight Disparities in Global Biodiversity Conservation Funding

Mar. 3, 2025 — The extensive loss of biodiversity represents one of the major crises of our time, threatening not only entire ecosystems but also our current and future livelihoods. As scientists realize the ...

Caribou Case Study Offers a New Model to Manage Species at Risk

Mar. 3, 2025 — Researchers are suggesting a more comprehensive approach for identifying at-risk wildlife populations -- such as caribou -- based on individual movement patterns. The article uses a long-term dataset ...

Koalas' Catch-22

Feb. 27, 2025 — New research highlights the unique dilemma faced by Sydney's koala population. Populations in south-western Sydney are among the very few in New South Wales still free of chlamydia, a highly ...

Conservation Focusing on Birds of a Feather May Have Mixed Results

Feb. 27, 2025 — Conservation strategies are turning back the doomsday clock in threatened Florida-Scrub Jays -- but not without caveats, a new study ...

Environment Nudges Birds to Fast, or Slow, Life Lane

Feb. 25, 2025 — A study shows birds worldwide make strategic decisions about how they live based on their environmental conditions. Some live fast, die young, and leave as many chicks as possible. Others live long ...

The Rising Tide of Sand Mining: A Growing Threat to Marine Life

Feb. 21, 2025 — Scientists outline the urgency to better identify the significant damage sand extraction across the world heaps upon marine ...

10 New Sponge Species Near Hawaii

Feb. 20, 2025 — Biologists, using a technique that explores both genes and structural characteristics, have introduced 10 new species of marine sponge. Despite their distinction as one of Earth's oldest ...