Deforestation is destroying forests around the world, but its effects are especially obvious in the Amazon Basin. Due to cattle ranching, soybean farming, logging, and slash-and-burn agriculture, the rainforest is…
The survival of primary forests depends on many overlapping interactions. Among these interactions include tropical gardeners, like the bonobo (Pan pansicus) in the Congo Basin, according to a new study…
It is hard to reconcile visions of a sharp-toothed, scaly, and ferocious crocodile with anything other than a completely carnivorous diet. We have been bombarded with gory kill scenes in…
Lesser known than coral reefs, marine seagrass ecosystems are rich in biodiversity and are powerhouses when it comes to sequestering carbon dioxide. Yet, much remains unknown about the ecology of…
A fruit falls to the floor in a rainforest. It waits. And waits. Inside the fruit is a seed, and like most seeds in tropical forests, this one needs an…
Forest elephants in the Mbeli River, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Congo. Photo by: Thomas Breuer. Elephants are vanishing. The booming illegal ivory trade is decimating the world's largest land animal, but…
Editor's note: this story should have been published 12/12/2011 but due to a technical glitch never went online. We just noticed its unpublished status today. Our apologies to Velho and…
Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks fitting a GPS-collar to study the movements of a wild elephant. Photo courtesy of Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz. Humans and elephants have…
An agouti in Panama. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In order to disperse their seeds, large-fruited tropical trees probably relied on massive mammals that roamed the earth over 10,000 years…
Biodiversity conservation is huge field, but at its heart we find something very small: the seed. From seeds come the plants we need and food for the animals we hope…
WARNING: Graphic photos below. Hunter in the Colombian rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Protected areas in the world's tropical rainforests are absolutely essential, but one cannot simply set up…
An interview with Kara Moses, a part of our on-going Interviews with Young Scientists series. Kara Moses with the ruffed lemurs at Dudley Zoo, conducting undergraduate research. Kara Moses may…
Rainforest of the Danum Valley, Malaysia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. For one month the Royal Society is offering a special theme issue of its Philosophical Transaction B journal on…
Kivu giant pouched rat caught on camera trap eating a seed of Carapa grandiflora. Photo by: Aisha Nyiramana. Rats are rarely thought of as heroes. In fact, in many parts…
Black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) feeding on a tamarind. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Many tropical plants depend on other species to carry their progeny far-and-wide. Scientists are just beginning…
The Amazon rainforest can recover from logging, but has a far more difficult time returning after repeated burning, reports a new study in mongabay.com's open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science. In…
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.…
Rambutan fruit. Photo courtesy of Orangutan Foundation International. Among conservationists and biologists, the mega-island of Borneo is a sort of Mecca. Its rich plant and animal biodiversity, as well as…
Forest elephant. Photo by: Carlton Ward Junior. An interview with Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz and Stephen Blake. Warning: graphic images below. It seems difficult to imagine elephants delicately tending a garden, but…
Rainforest leaves in Uganda. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. To read last year's Earth Day article: World failing on every environmental issue: an op-ed for Earth Day. There is no…
Researchers discover that overexploited fish are long-distance seed dispersers. The giant tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum) in Manaus Fish Market, Brazil. Photo by: Thorke Østergaard. A fruit in the flooded Amazon falls…
A photo of an illegally killed great pied hornbill (Buceros bicornis) by what appears to be Malaysian soldiers has angered environmentalists in Malaysia, according to the New Strait Times. The…
According to the first study of its kind in Africa, bushmeat hunting impacts African rainforests by wiping-out large mammals and birds—such as forest elephants, primates, and hornbills—that are critical for…