Ecosystems
- Ecosystems
Marjorie Weber explores plant-protecting ants and other wonders of evolution
Cooperation across the tree of life is an understudied driver of evolution and biodiversity, Marjorie Weber says.
- Life
5,000 deep-sea animals new to science turned up in ocean records
Scientists compiled a list of animals unknown to science that live in a deep-sea Pacific Ocean ecosystem targeted for mining exploration.
- Climate
Thawing permafrost may unleash industrial pollution across the Arctic
As the frozen ground warms due to climate change, industrial pollutants could flow free from thousands of sites across the Arctic.
- Earth
A massive cavern beneath a West Antarctic glacier is teeming with life
A subglacial river has carved out the cavern beneath the Kamb Ice Stream, a West Antarctic glacier, and may be supplying nutrients necessary for life.
- Animals
Freshwater leeches’ taste for snails could help control snail-borne diseases
A freshwater leech species will eat snails, raising the possibility that leeches could be used to control snail-borne diseases that infect humans and livestock.
- Animals
The last leg of the longest butterfly migration has now been identified
After a long journey across the Sahara, painted lady butterflies from Europe set up camp in central Africa to wait out winter and breed.
- Animals
A ‘fire wolf’ fish could expand what we know about one unusual deep-sea ecosystem
Unlike other known methane seeps, Jacó Scar is slightly warmer than the surrounding water and is a home for both cold-loving and heat-loving organisms.
- Environment
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill ruined long-term shore stability
For at least eight years, the oil disaster continued to kill soil-retaining marsh plants along the Louisiana coast, accelerating shoreline loss.
- Climate
Wildfires in boreal forests released a record amount of CO2 in 2021
Boreal forests store about one-third of the world’s land-based carbon. With wildfires increasing there, fighting climate change could get even harder.
- Paleontology
In the wake of history’s deadliest mass extinction, ocean life may have flourished
Ocean life may have recovered in just a million years after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, fossils from South China suggest.
- Animals
A rare rabbit plays an important ecological role by spreading seeds
Rabbits aren’t thought of as seed dispersers, but the Amami rabbit of Japan has now been recorded munching on a plant’s seeds and pooping them out.
- Microbes
Scientists have found the first known microbes that can eat only viruses
Lab experiments show that Halteria ciliates can chow down solely on viruses. Whether these “virovores” do the same in the wild is unclear.
