~ecology-news-biolog | Bookmarks (445)

A team of environmental scientists at Duke University, working with colleagues from the University of New South Wales, the University of Queensland and the University of California, has found that green staghorn coral around Heron Island (part of the Great Barrier Reef) are more likely to survive warming water temperatures if hoof-clawed crabs live in the near vicinity.

The clownfish-anemone living arrangement is one of the most widely recognized examples of symbiosis. Researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding how anemonefish can live safely among sea anemones without being stung by their venomous tentacles, solving a century-long mystery.

A new Colorado State University study of the interior U.S. West has found that tree ranges are generally contracting in response to climate change but not expanding into cooler, wetter climates—suggesting that forests are not regenerating fast enough to keep pace with climate change, wildfire, insects and disease.

Undersea mountains are key locations for predators—with 41 times more sharks than the open ocean, new research shows.

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) is a vital cash-crop for four to six million small-holder farmers across the tropics, and supports a global chocolate industry valued at over USD 100 billion annually. The combination of millions of farmers relying on cocoa for their livelihoods, and increasing global demand for the crop, has driven cocoa plantation expansion and intensification of farming practices, often at the expense...

A University of Nebraska-Lincoln research team has identified new microscopic players in the global carbon cycle, a discovery that paints a clearer picture of carbon flow through the environment and provides key information for the sustainable development of bioenergy sources.

Biodiversity loss has accelerated at an alarming rate in recent decades, driven largely by human activities such as clearing forests to grow crops or harvest timber. While countries often degrade ecosystems within their own borders through these activities, they also play a significant role in driving habitat loss overseas by outsourcing agricultural production, i.e., importing food or timber from other countries, thereby leading those...

Some efforts to preserve or rewild natural habitats are shifting harmful land use to other parts of the world—and this could drive an even steeper decline in the planet's species, according to a team of conservation scientists and economists led by the University of Cambridge.

Over the past 60 years, marine biologists at UC Santa Cruz have monitored the behavior of northern elephant seals that journey to nearby Año Nuevo Natural Reserve. With the seals gathering on the beach by the thousands to breed and molt, generations of researchers have been able to amass more than 350,000 observations on over 50,000 seals.

In tropical forests, endangered species inside protected habitats are still in danger from threats from beyond their sanctuaries, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Ilaria Greco and Francesco Rovero of the University of Florence, Italy, and colleagues.

The ink of the cuttlefish could transform how sharks are deterred from hunting near swimmers, according to new research.

For fruit flies, finding the right mate is all about the right song. Now, research shows that male flies don't just try to impress their valentine by serenading her with song—they also go to great lengths to drown out the competition. By jamming their rivals' love songs with high-frequency wing flicks, male fruit flies boost the chances that they'll win the female over.

Jumping spiders—one of the largest spider families—get their name from the extraordinary jumps they make to hunt prey, to navigate and also to evade predators.

Crocodiles in northern Australia are heating up as the climate warms, with higher body temperatures changing their behavior.

Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence Collective Behavior have introduced the method YOLO-Behaviour: a new computer vision framework to automatically identify animal behaviors from videos. The robust and easy-to-use tool lowers the barrier of entry for biologists who would like to automate data collection using novel AI technologies.

Pesticides are causing overwhelming negative effects on hundreds of species of microbes, fungi, plants, insects, fish, birds and mammals that they are not intended to harm—and globally their use is a major contributor to the biodiversity crisis.

Researchers have unveiled new insights into how weather influences the spread of dengue fever. Their study identifies temperature and rainfall as critical factors driving the global surge in dengue cases and offers actionable strategies for mitigating the disease's impact.

Observing animal behavior in a laboratory offers a controlled environment, but these model organisms can behave differently in the wild. An Osaka Metropolitan University-led research team that uses medaka in the lab has now clarified certain aspects of how these fish live in their natural environment.

A new study from researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides the first empirical evidence that loggerhead sea turtles can learn and remember the unique magnetic signatures of different geographic regions. This discovery offers new insights into how turtles and other migratory animals navigate vast distances to reach specific foraging and breeding grounds. The findings, published in the journal Nature,...

Just as the human body serves as a habitat for bacteria and other microbes, diverse, tiny organisms known as protists host their own microbiomes.

The U.K. has 4 million more dogs than previously estimated, with regional hotspots in Telford, Darlington and Harrogate, new research shows.

Expanding aquaculture in the Amazon could provide nutritional and economic benefits at a fraction of the environmental cost of cattle grazing, according to a paper in Nature Sustainability from Cornell researchers and colleagues in the U.S. and Brazil. Such expansion could also come with risks, especially the potential introduction of harmful non-native species, the paper finds.

A new study led by Prof. Adi Torfstein from the Hebrew University and Prof. Oren Levy from Bar-Ilan University, in collaboration with an international team of researchers, has uncovered a significant pause in coral reef growth in the Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba, northern Red Sea, during the late Holocene period.

Marmalade hoverflies leave northern Europe each autumn to escape the cold winter. A study, by the University of Exeter, compared the number of males and females migrating at a northern point (Denmark) and further south (Spain).