A team led by geoscientists from Arizona State University and Michigan State University has used computer modeling to explain how pockets of mushy rock accumulate at the boundary between Earth's core and mantle.

Scientists at the University of York have shown that using historical wildlife data provides a more accurate measure of how vulnerable certain species might be to extinction from climate change.

Some of the methods used to predict at risk species are trend-based – an indicator of what happens gradually over time – while others are trait based, which uses signs of climate change in the current environment.

The largest remaining ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula lost 10% of its area when an iceberg four times the size of London broke free earlier this month.

Since the 12 July 2017 breakaway Dr Anna Hogg, from the University of Leeds, and Dr Hilmar Gudmundsson, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), have continued to track the iceberg – known as A68 – using the European Space Agency (ESA) and European Commission’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite.

Like tourist season, wildfire season is also in full swing in British Columbia.  Whereas tourists are welcomed to the Canadian province, wildfires are not.  In British Columbia alone there are close to 500 wildfires active to date.  Most of these wildfires are located in three general areas--in the Caribou Fire Centre located in the Frasier Plateau directly north of Vancouver, in the Kamloops Fire Centre in the Thomas Plateau, which is east of Whistler, and the Southeast Fire Centre which is east of Kamloops.  All current fires of note can be viewed on this interactive map:  http://governmentofbc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a1e7b1ecb1514974a9ca00bdbfffa3b1 

Wildfires in British Columbia are common at this time of year due to rising temperatures, however, this year is the third worst year in the region for forest fires.  To date 840 fires have broken out since April 1 of this year.  Although it started slow, 2017 is shaping up to be a record breaking fire season if not for numbers of fires, then for the sheer amount of hectares burned.  In an area where rainfall is the norm, to have days and weeks without rainfall is unusual and helps to create a hot, dry environment with plenty of underbrush that fires use as fuel.  

Interpreting relationships between species and their environments is crucial to inform ecosystem-based management (EBM), a priority for NOAA Fisheries. EBM recognizes the diverse interactions within an ecosystem — including human impacts — so NOAA Fisheries can consider resource tradeoffs that help protect and sustain productive ecosystems and the services they provide.

There could be some good news on the horizon as scientists try to understand the effects and processes related to climate change.

As climate change brings new pressures to bear on wildlife, species must “move, adapt, acclimate, or die.” Erik Beever and colleagues review the literature on acclimation through behavioral flexibility, identifying patterns in examples from invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and fishes, in the cover article for the August issue of the Ecological Society of America’s (ESA) journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The authors focus on the American pika (Ochotona princeps) as a case study in behavioral adaptation.

Fear alone may be enough to cause vulnerable species to go extinct, according to a new University of Guelph study.

Prof. Ryan Norris has discovered that the mere smell of a predator affects the reproductive success of fruit flies.

Like humans, some birds can spend years learning and exploring before developing more settled habits.

A study of northern gannets has shown adults return to the same patch of sea over and over again to find food.

The DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Palaeoscience funded researchers based in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies and in the Evolutionary Studies Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand have used fossil pollen records to solve an on-going debate regarding invasive plant species in eastern Lesotho.