Plants News

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…

The oldest members of one of Africa’s iconic tree species, the African baobab (Adansonia digitata), appear to be in trouble, according to a study out this week. Across the tree’s…

Droughts aren’t usually a problem for rainforests, which, as their name implies, are generally typified by lots of precipitation. But in the past few years, there’s been a noticeable drying…

An expedition through the rainforests, mountains and grasslands of Bolivia’s Madidi National Park has turned up hundreds of species previously unknown in the park, including dozens that could be new…

Humans have had a massive impact on other forms of life, one that far outweighs how little biomass we represent, according to a recent study. “It is definitely striking, our…

Roads, ranches, mines and cities are spilling into many of the world’s parks, reserves and wilderness sanctuaries, leaving one-third of the world’s total protected area — almost three and a…

It may seem like yet another set of picture-perfect tropical islands: high cliffs and modest hills rolling into the brilliant blue Atlantic Ocean. Scrubby bushes and small rocks dominate the…

Monarch butterflies depend on milkweed and its poisonous compounds that are deadly to most other insects. But a new study finds global warming may be making the very plant monarch…

JAKARTA — Environmental advocates have warned that proposed revisions to Indonesia’s conservation act could provide new loopholes for wildlife traffickers, who already enjoy a thriving trade in one of the…

Carving up rainforests to make room for farming, ranching and other uses induces a host of changes into the ecosystem, many of which scientists are only just beginning to understand.…

Madagascar is known as an ark for biodiversity that's found nowhere else on the planet. Unfortunately, it's also known for the bevy of threats that those distinctive species that live…

Scientists have long believed the lack of nutrients in tropical forests soils meant that they weren’t very productive when it came to plant growth. But at the same time, trees…

A new study drastically upends conventional wisdom about when plants colonized land, pushing back the date about 80 million years to around half a billion years ago. The new date…

The specter of an environmental problem once thought to have been solved has risen again. A new study published Feb. 6 in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics reports that…

In a first-of-its-kind expedition, a team of more than 100 scientists and students have surveyed the largely unexplored Penang Hill in the Malaysian state of Penang. The landscape of rolling…

Scientists have compiled a list of every known vascular plant found in North and South America, providing a new tool to understand how species are distributed throughout the two continents.…

Populations of bees, bats, butterflies and other pollinators have been declining for decades due to habitat loss, disease, pesticides and climate change. Now, scientists have documented yet another threat to…

When tropical forests are felled and converted into land for oil palm or rubber plantations, it’s easy to think of the orangutans or the tigers that may lose their lives…

On today’s episode, we’ll get an update on an ambitious effort to document traditional indigenous healing and medicinal practices in the Amazon and speak with the reporter behind Mongabay’s popular…

The Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) of Sumatra is both the world’s newest known great ape species and its most threatened, after being officially categorized this week as “Critically Endangered,” or…

The natural world is full of medicines, many of which have been tapped by pharmaceutical companies to derive products that adorn our drugstore shelves and bathroom cabinets. But humans aren’t…

While walking through the forests of Guyana's Potaro Plateau one night in 2014, herpetologist Andrew Snyder noticed a flash of bright cobalt blue peeking out of hole in a rotting…

ANKAFOBE, Madagascar — When he first told colleagues at the Missouri Botanical Garden that lemurs still lived in the forest in Ankafobe, Jean Jacques Rasolofonirina said he was met with…

Across the swath of vertebrate lifeforms that inhabit Earth, scientists have a pretty good idea about where most of the known land mammals, birds and amphibians live. That makes identifying…

The conservation NGO WWF UK is calling on consumers to cut back the amount of meat they eat. Land used to produce feed crops for livestock and farmed fish threatens…