Droughts can transform tropical forests. They kill trees and slow their growth. They also affect microbes that are critical to keeping the forest soil healthy. But termites, better known for…
If you know the animals in your neighborhood but not the plants, you’re not alone. Scientists have documented nearly 400,000 plant species and expect to identify many more. But unlike…
Once again this year, researchers described several new species of animals and plants after months, or even several years, of trials and tribulations. Some were tiny, like the Japan pig,…
Reports of illegal trafficking in elephant ivory or rhino horn abound, but plants are actually more frequent victims of the illicit trade than wildlife. In fact, roughly 30,000 of the…
New research finds that seed banking alone is not sufficient to conserve the world’s threatened plant and tree species. According to a paper published in the journal Nature Plants this…
Very few tropical forests around the world enjoy uninterrupted contiguity. Most are divided into uneven, small fragments, cut off from each other, their boundaries marked by roads or farms. But as…
The fires closing in on Erika Berenguer’s research site in Brazil’s eastern Amazon were unlike anything she had seen in years working in the forest. Smoke hung heavy the air.…
Nearly 70 years ago, Edwin Ujor of the Nigerian Forestry Service collected a specimen of a tree from a forest high up in the Bamenda highlands in Cameroon. The specimen…
JAKARTA — Organizers of the recently concluded Asian Games in Indonesia had been braced for the worst-case scenario: forest fires flaring up and shrouding Palembang, one of the host cities,…
More isolated oceanic islands harbor fewer native species due to the fact that plants and animals are less capable of naturally dispersing to and colonizing those islands. This is known…
Few plants capture the imagination quite like orchids. When orchid fever gripped England in the early 1800s, wealthy aristocrats sent out orchid hunters to forests around the world in search…
JAKARTA — Songbird owners in Indonesia are up in arms over the recent inclusion of hundreds of bird species in the national list of protected animals. The owners plan to…
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…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has expanded its list of wildlife species banned from trading and hunting for the first time in nearly two decades, bringing the total number of…
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…
Local and indigenous communities seem to hold the key to protecting both forests and the massive amounts of carbon that they contain — and on which we all depend. But…
RIO DE JANEIRO — The botanical garden here sits just below Corcovado hill, at the feet of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue. Boasting 54 hectares (133 acres) and more…
Plant numbers have surged in a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean following the eradication of invasive rats that gobbled up seeds and gnawed away at vegetation, a new…
For the first time ever, biologists have sequenced the genomes of two tiny ferns, Azolla filiculoides and Salvinia cucullata, and they’ve revealed some interesting secrets. Despite being one of the most…
Scientists in Belgium have used 36 years of footage from an annual bicycle race to pinpoint the time each year when leaves and flowers appeared on trees and shrubs, allowing…
