New Research Reveals Scale is a Key Ingredient When Tracking Biodiversity
To fully understand biodiversity and how it is changing, you need to look near, far, and in-between, according to a new study. Researchers at Yale…
Biodiversity
Ants Help Researchers Understand Why Biodiversity is Higher in Tropical Regions
It’s a puzzle that has confounded biologists for centuries: the earth’s tropical regions are home to an enormous variety of plant and animal species, but…
Yale Study Shows Geoengineering the Climate Could Have Dangerous Consequences
One of the scientific tools being considered to reduce the impacts of climate change is solar geoengineering, or the injection of aerosols into the atmosphere…
Biologists Track Global Reductions in Terrestrial Mammalian Movements
Humans change entire landscapes – by building cities and roads, by farming land and by exploiting natural resources. What effects does this have on animals…
New Research Reveals That Trade is a Major Driver of Biodiversity
A newly published study shows that trade is one of the major drivers of biodiversity among lizard species in the Caribbean islands, finding that the…
New Study Links Expanding Human Population to Threats of Animal Extinction
A newly published study paints a grim outlook for the future of certain mammals and birds, suggesting that the average growing nation should expect at…
The Effects of Ice Retreat and Biodiversity in the Arctic Deep Sea
2012 saw the greatest Arctic ice minimum ever recorded, allowing researchers to document the effects of ice retreat and biodiversity in the Arctic deep sea….
Biodiversity and Disease Risk for Humans
A newly published study pokes holes in widely accepted theory that connects biodiversity abundance with a reduced disease risk for humans, finding that the links…
DNA in Flesh-Eating Flies’ Guts Reveal Biodiversity
When blowflies and flesh flies settle on dead animals, they aren’t just feasting on the carrion, they are in fact sampling their DNA. Scientists have…
At Least a Third of All Marine Species are Still Unknown
The most comprehensive assessment of ocean life has revealed that one third to two thirds of all species are still unknown to science. The scientists…
Projections of Urban Growth Highlight at Risk Areas
Researchers are trying to make detailed predictions about how urban areas are likely to grow in order to forecast how the next few decades of…
Survey of Brazil’s Atlantic Forests Reveals Loss of Key Species
According to a new survey of Brazil’s Atlantic forests, mammal extinctions are occurring at least twice as fast as previous estimates suggested. Jaguars, lowland tapirs,…
Biodiversity on Earth Increases with Global Warming
It would seem logical that periods of global warming in Earth’s history started the extinction pulses that defined the geological record. However, that’s not the…
A Fifth of All Invertebrates on Earth Threatened by Extinction
One in five of Earth’s invertebrate species are currently threatened with extinction. These creatures represent 99% of the biodiversity on Earth. Until now, scientists haven’t…
Ocean Health Index, A Comprehensive Assessment of the Ocean and its Ecosystems
Scientists have completed the first comprehensive assessment of the ocean and its ecosystems, called the Ocean Health Index. The overall index score was 60 out…
Pacific Islanders Weapons Indicate that Three Shark Species Disappeared
The analysis of the weapons used by the indigenous people of the Gilbert Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, which primarily use shark teeth, indicate…
Many Nature Reserves Struggling to Sustain Their Original Biodiversity
A new study from a team of international scientists found that deforestation is advancing rapidly in tropical nations and most reserves are losing some or…
Extinctions Due to Habitat Loss are Proportional to the Area Destroyed
While studying extinction threat due to habitat loss, scientists found that the relationship between geographic area and richness of species primarily depends on the mean…