Hawaiʻi’s ecosystems and agriculture face growing threats from invasive species, with about 20 new insects and 100 new plants arriving each year, undermining the islands’ ecological, cultural and economic foundations. 

Scientists analyzed the distribution of three potentially harmful tick species in Illinois, identifying regions of the state with higher numbers of these ticks and, therefore, at greater risk of infection with multiple tick-borne diseases.

Andia Chaves-Fonnegra, Ph.D., an associate professor of biology at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, has been awarded a five-year, $720,446 grant from the United States EPA to support a pioneering project aimed at restoring sponge populations in Florida Bay through a genetics-based approach.

“Climate change has already caused more than 12,000 species to shift their homes across land, freshwater and the sea,” says the University of Adelaide’s Dr Chloe Hayes, who has published a study on the new approach.

Illinois once harbored more than 8 million acres of wetlands. By the 1980s, all but 1.2 million wetland acres had been lost, filled in for development or drained to make way for agriculture.

Researchers have revealed a clear relationship between stress and increased disease risk in koalas in South East Queensland and on the New South Wales North Coast.

Increasing tree species diversity is widely suggested as a way to help forests withstand climate change – especially prolonged droughts.

A study of migratory hoverflies on a North Sea oil rig has revealed their vital role as long-distance pollen transporters.

A team led by University of Georgia ecologists documented two new species of black bass, Bartram’s bass and Altamaha bass, in a new paper.

A study examining the effects of higher temperatures on soil shows that warming alone does not increase levels of carbon dioxide emitted from the soil.