Climate Change And Biodiversity News

Just before Pope Francis released Laudato Si’, an encyclical, or formal letter from the pope, on the environment, on May 24, 2015, global concern for the environment seemed to be…

Warmer temperatures are fanning the spread of a deadly disease in frogs, a new study has found. Teasing apart the complex dynamics of the effects of climate change on how…

Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…

For more than three months, penguins living off the coast of Namibia have been battling an outbreak of bird flu. The worst of the disease seems to have passed, but…

Tapirs may help rainforests recover after destructive human use and increase the amount of carbon they hold, new research has found. The study, based in the Brazilian Amazon, found that…

Ecosystems in their natural state are disappearing quickly around the globe. On that most scientists agree. But how to stem those losses through conservation is hotly debated. Many believe that…

New research published in the journal PLoS ONE this month finds that the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) is effectively aiding in the recovery of beleaguered populations of marine mammals…

When Valentine’s Day rolled around last year, Romeo found himself without a date. That’s because Romeo is a Sehuencas water frog and, as far as scientists knew at the time,…

Research on soft-bodied marine invertebrates such as squid and jellyfish has been slow in coming. Squid are keystone taxa and important food sources for myriad larger species, said T. Aran…

The recent plunge in numbers of Grauer's gorillas in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has lopped off one-fifth of the subspecies’ genetic diversity, leaving it potentially vulnerable to…

KATOWICE, Poland — A plan adopted by delegates at last month’s climate summit in Poland to weaponize forests in the fight against global warming could have a disastrous outcome, environmentalists…

On a midsummer evening earlier this year, Tracy Pham was on a walk along Huntington Beach, California, an outing she usually made to photograph birds. This time, along the way,…

Naturalist and painter John James Audubon published Birds of America in the 19th century. Audubon had set out to paint every bird in North America, and the book contained 435…

Imagine being able to know how many individual organisms occur at any given time across areas as large as whole continents or even the entire globe. Though satellites may one…

When a vibrant coral reef teeming with life transforms into a barren skeleton in the tropical shallows — as a result of bleaching linked to climate change, for example —…

African leaders came together on Nov. 13 to back the restoration of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of degraded ecosystems ahead of the start of the U.N. Biodiversity Conference.…

New, highly detailed maps now reveal the state of the world’s wilderness, both on land and at sea, and the picture looks bleak. In a series of recent studies, a…

Rising temperatures seem to have made a southern African park less hospitable to the tsetse fly (Glossina spp.), the carrier of a dangerous disease-causing microorganism, new research shows. Named for…

This is the third story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Kawawana ICCA, read the others here: Senegal: After reviving fish and forests, Jola villages tackle new threats and here: Watching…

Research has shown that a sixth mass extinction event is underway and largely driven by human activities. With the global population set to balloon to 10 billion people by 2050,…

Biologist Joel Berger endures extreme conditions to study muskoxen and learn about the opportunities — and limits — of behavioral flexibility in a fast changing climate.

On this episode we welcome the godfather of biodiversity, Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, to discuss some of the most important environmental issues we’re currently facing and why he believes the next…

Some corals stand a chance of surviving the current rise in global sea temperatures, a team of scientists recently reported, thanks to the diversity of their algal counterparts. They found…

Changing climate has already affected where some species live. To determine how changes in temperature and rainfall patterns may affect a given plant or animal, researchers need to know where…

A new study paints a precarious picture for the rare Nilgiri tahr, an endangered goat-like species that lives in the mountains of the Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot in India.…

New research confirms the fragility of life living in the world’s oceans, which are growing warmer and more acidic as carbon dioxide levels rise. The carbon dioxide that ends up…

Under the forest floor lies a complex, hidden world of fungi. These tiny creatures form intimate connections with tree roots, sharing resources with each other and influencing the soil around…

Scientists seeking the tools necessary to tackle climate change need to better understand both the current interplay between carbon and tropical forests and how those forests will respond as temperatures…

Humans have wiped out most of the pristine parts of the world’s oceans, a new study has found. In the first global mapping of human impacts on marine environments, a…

KUCHING, Malaysia — Conservationists have called on governments and the private sector to do more to mitigate the impact of global shipping activities on marine ecosystems and communities in the…