The loss of birds could significantly impact efforts to combat deforestation, according to research from scientists looking at species across the Brazilian Amazon. 

MANHATTAN — The shrew and its parasites — even 40-year-old preserved ones — are the new indicators of environmental change, according to a Kansas State University researcher.

Extreme droughts, intensified by a warming climate, are increasingly causing ecosystem collapse in many regions worldwide. But models used by scientists to predict the tipping points at which drought stress leads to ecosystem collapse have proven unreliable and too optimistic.

A new study by scientists at Duke University and Beijing Normal University may hold the answer why.   

The researchers found that these tipping points can happen much sooner than current models predict because of the added pressures placed on drought-weakened plants by grazing animals and fungal pathogens.

The hottest months. The snowiest winters. Catastrophic floods and droughts.

Climate change impacts lives across the world in drastic and unpredictable ways. This unpredictability also extends to the more subtle – yet still important – effects of climate change.

For example, it is uncertain how climate change will affect soils and their ability to support productive farms or healthy natural ecosystems.

Avast peatland in the Congo Basin has been mapped for the first time, revealing it to be the largest in the tropics.

The new study found that the Cuvette Centrale peatlands in the central Congo Basin, which were unknown to exist five years ago, cover 145,500 square kilometres – an area larger than England. They lock in 30 billion tonnes of carbon making the region one of the most carbon-rich ecosystems on Earth. 

Predicting how species will respond to climate change is a critical part of efforts to prevent widespread climate-driven extinction, or to predict its consequences for ecosystems.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has placed the rusty patched bumble bee, once common in 28 states and two Canadian provinces, on the endangered species list, the first bee to receive such protection in the contiguous 48 states. 

Louisiana—which faces faster levels of sea-level rise than any other land on Earth—could lose as many as 2,800 square miles of its coast over the next 40 years and about 27,000 buildings will need to be flood-proofed, elevated or bought out, the New Orleans Advocate reported.

A tiny plant is providing big clues about how urbanization is driving the evolution of living organisms.

New research from U of T reveals the first evidence that the common white clover changes genetically to adapt to urban environments.

A theory that uses the mathematics of a drunken walk describes ecological invasions better than waves, according to Tim Reluga, associate professor of mathematics and biology, Penn State.