The Philippines’ southern region of Mindanao has a history of war and armed conflict going back more than 400 years. The contemporary conflict’s origin in this region of 26.3 million…
How do you identify sick oaks? For a long time, detecting unhealthy oaks and identifying the disease afflicting them required a lot of manual labor. Scientists often looked out of…
In 2015, smelly mats of a brown macroalgae called sargassum piled as high as 1.2 meter (4 feet) on the beaches of Barbados, recalls Joshua Forte. It was the fourth…
Few researchers have ever seen this elusive wildcat and it is known primarily from a few camera trap photos. Which raises the question: How do you conserve an endangered species about which we know almost nothing?
New research has linked prenatal exposure to deforestation in Cambodia to child stunting and anemia among women. This link between human well-being and forest loss illustrates how the latter can…
Roosevelt said the recent hype regarding the “garden cities” in Ecuador is “annoying”, as it is not a new discovery and it ignores older research from Latin American archaeologists.
Vocalizations have the capacity to illuminate valuable information about an animal’s health and wellbeing, if we are willing to put in the effort to listen. The first time I appreciated…
Ten years ago, says Mike Chase, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was one fluid contiguous elephant habitat. “An elephant could be in Botswana in the morning, midday in Zimbabwe…
Floodplains are extraordinarily productive because they are the interface between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They are remarkably diverse because they integrate a mosaic of lakes, marshes, palm swamps and inundated…
In 2024, Latin America’s tiger cat, previously recognized as two species, was determined by scientists to be three species — a taxonomic reshuffling that has major conservation implications for these small cats.
FORT PIERCE, Florida — Just off of North Kings Highway, a dirt road once led to lush rows of sweet-smelling citrus crops: grapefruits, lemons and oranges. Now, all that’s left…
While four-wheeled EVs get most of the media attention, electric bicycles are an economical, environmentally friendly mode of transportation being chosen by millions of consumers, commuters and businesses the world over. But barriers exist.
The Negros fruit dove was described from a single specimen collected in the Philippines in 1953 — then never seen again by scientists. Now, thanks to advances in DNA sequencing,…
Over the past 4 billion years, lifeforms have evolved into the spectacular array of species that now inhabit the planet. While many species radiated into extensive families of closely related…
Young trees face significant challenges surviving in previously logged forests compared to intact forests, even in areas with active restoration efforts, according to a recent study. The findings, published in…
Scientists have recently described six new species of millipedes, including one from an entirely new genus, in Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains. This brings the number of new species found in…
Scientists from Madagascar, the U.S. and Europe have described a new orchid species found up in the forest canopies of central Madagascar. The orchid, named Solenangis impraedicta, boasts a nectar…
A team of paleontologists found a giant fossilized skull along the shore of the Napo River in the Peruvian Amazon. To their surprise, the relic belonged to a newly described…
A paper generated by the Merz Institute, an Aotearoa New Zealand-based research institute, and published in the journal Science Progress in 2023, hypothesizes that the environmental crises our planet faces…
The yellow-legged hornet is a predator: after it sets up a nest in a new neighborhood, its workers head out in search of smaller wasps, flies and bees to feed…
Blantyre, MALAWI — When Cyclone Idai stormed Mozambique in 2019, researchers at Gorongosa National Park rode the current to test a long-held theory that the vulnerability of wildlife species to…
For generations, Aboriginal Martu people in the northwestern deserts of Australia managed their ancestral lands and shaped their landscapes using fire. Burning small, frequent and low-intensity fires in diverse fire…
There is an “inland archipelago” of mountains stretching across southern Malawi and northern Mozambique — a chain of hard granite inselbergs lifted high above the surrounding landscape as it weathered…
When a tree falls in the forest, lianas hear an opportunity. Figuratively, at least. These long-stemmed woody vines hitch a ride to the canopy by climbing up trees, rather than…
Fresh research published in early 2024 continues to uncover the true cost on biodiversity, the economy and public health triggered by unprecedented wildfires that swept Australia in late 2019 and…
Being silly and indulging in humor may sound easy, but our brains need to do a lot of heavy lifting to pull it off. Landing a joke requires recognizing what’s…
When Leandro Castello graduated with his degree in oceanography in 1998, he didn’t immediately get a job related to the ocean. Instead, he found himself in the Middle Solimões region…
EL ARROZAL, Guatemala – A Yucatán black howler monkey, an endangered species, swung from a branch in its enclosure at the ARCAS wildlife rescue center in northern Guatemala. It was…
To say tracking prairie dogs is difficult would be an understatement. The animals spend most of their time in burrows. Since conventional GPS collars don’t function underground, the movements and…
The term “field station” has an air of mystery, conjuring images of some tropical or icy outpost where scientists go to “do science.” And while it’s true that scientific research…