Ecosystems

Animals

Shy fish no bigger than a pinkie provide much of the food in coral reefs

More than half of the fish flesh that predators in coral reefs eat comes from tiny, hard-to-spot species.

Plants

Some plants use hairy roots and acid to access nutrients in rock

Shrubs in mountainous areas of Brazil have specialized roots that secrete chemicals to extract phosphorus from rock.

Animals

Tiger sharks feast on migratory birds that fall out of the sky

Terrestrial birds that fall from the sky during their migration across the Gulf of Mexico can end up in the bellies of tiger sharks.

Ecosystems

Readers were curious about green icebergs, aliens and more

Readers had questions and comments about icebergs and climate change, CBD and NASA’s search for E.T.

Earth

A belly full of wriggling worms makes wood beetles better recyclers

Common beetles that eat rotten logs chew up more wood when filled with a roundworm larvae, releasing nutrients more quickly back to the forest floor.

Ecosystems

War wrecked an African ecosystem. Ecologists are trying to restore it

Bringing back big predators to Gorongosa, once a wildlife paradise in Mozambique, is just one piece of the puzzle in undoing the damage there.

Animals

Hippo poop cycles silicon through the East African environment

By chowing down on grass and then excreting into rivers and lakes, hippos play a big role in transporting a nutrient crucial to the food web.

Animals

Endangered green sea turtles may be making a comeback in the U.S. Pacific

The numbers of green sea turtles spotted around Hawaii, American Samoa and the Mariana Islands have increased in the last decade.

Microbes

A global survey finds that the Arctic Ocean is a hot spot for viruses

Scientists mapped virus diversity around the world’s oceans. That knowledge may be key to making better climate simulations.

Climate

Climate change made the Arctic greener. Now parts of it are turning brown.

Arctic browning could have far-reaching consequences for people and wildlife, affecting habitat and atmospheric carbon uptake as well as increasing wildfire risk.

Animals

Tiny pumpkin toadlets have glowing bony plates on their backs

Pumpkin toadlets are the first frogs found to have fluorescent bony plates that are visible through their skin under ultraviolet light.

Animals

Chytrid’s frog-killing toll has been tallied — and it’s bad

Losses due to the amphibian-killing chytrid fungus are “the greatest documented loss of biodiversity attributable to a pathogen,” researchers find.