Ecosystems
- 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.
- Animals
‘Epic Yellowstone’ captures the thriving ecosystem of the world-famous park
A new documentary series about Yellowstone displays the dynamic, dramatic and exciting ecosystem that thrives within the park’s gates.
- Climate
What happens when the Bering Sea’s ice disappears?
Record-low sea ice in 2018 sent ripples through the Bering Sea’s entire ecosystem. Will this be the region’s new normal?
- Oceans
Tiny bits of iron may explain why some icebergs are green
Scientists originally thought the green hue of some icebergs came from carbon particles. Instead, iron oxides may color the ice.
- Animals
What spiders eating weird stuff tell us about complex Amazon food webs
By documenting rare events of invertebrates eating small vertebrates, scientists are shedding new light on the Amazon rainforest’s intricate ecosystem.
