Ecosystem Engineers News

In the past decade, the European bison (Bison bonasus) has made a comeback in Central and Eastern Europe. Hunters had killed the last known bison in the region nearly a…

On the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo, fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos are all that’s left of this critically endangered species. Tremendous conservation efforts are striving to keep these…

The story of the American bison is both tragic and uplifting. Once dappling the prairies of North America in the tens of millions, hunting winnowed the number to perhaps a…

Fungi account for around half of the living organisms in our soils, yet we tend to only notice them when a conspicuous mushroom or toadstool pops up and draws our…

Nestled on the ocean floor in Southeast Asia are five sensor-filled boxes that will reveal the future of coral reefs. For the past year, from their secret location, the Bluboxx…

Today we’re looking at Indigenous-led projects and the latest research informing conservation of elephants, the largest land animal in existence and one of the world’s most widely recognized and beloved…

Since the 2018 emergence of African swine fever in China, the viral disease has torn through Asia, leaving behind a trail of economic devastation. It’s witheringly fatal to pigs but…

The bison circled four times around the holding pen, before the lead animals took them into the 3,400-hectare (8,500-acre) pasture, their new home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the…

Today we look at efforts to preserve and restore the biodiversity of the Cerrado in Brazil, the world’s largest and most biologically-rich tropical savanna. Listen here: Comprising more than 20%…

Amazonia, with its towering trees, bright birds, pink dolphins and mysterious big cats, has been painted as the quintessential wilderness, an exuberant and endless landscape that evolved beyond the touch…

For three years, the Bandeiras e Rodovias project looked at how giant anteaters interacted with the highways in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state. One of the conclusions: road deaths have cut the species' growth rate in half.

In the Czech Republic, horses have become the knights in shining armor. A study published in the Journal for Nature Conservation suggests that returning feral horses to grasslands in Podyjí…

This post is part of Saving Life on Earth: Words on the Wild, a monthly column by Jeremy Hance, one of Mongabay’s original staff writers.   At the end of…

The white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), a hairy, pig-like mammal that once lived throughout the forests of Central and South America, now only skitters around in 13 percent of its former…

New research suggests that mountain lions in the western United States play an outsize role in changing their surroundings, leading the authors of the study to suggest that the big…

We discuss one of the world’s most overlooked keystone species, the beaver, on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast. Listen here:   Most of us might not think of beavers…

Massive, but little-known, the giant armadillo caught on cameratrap. Photo by: Kevin Schafer/The Pantanal Giant Armadillo Project. The giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus) is not called a giant for nothing: it…

Herd of elephants crossing a river in Kenya. Photo by: Rob Roy. Scientists have long known that African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are talented tree-topplers, able to take down even large…

Lowland tapir in Yasuni National Park in Ecuador. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Patricia Medici will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 1st, 2011.…

While elephants may appear destructive when they pull down trees, tear up grasses or stir up soils, their impacts actually make space for the little guys: frogs and reptiles. The…