Each night, a dark cloud of flying foxes, or fruit bats, moves through the skies of eastern Australia on their way to gorge on nectar and fruits. With a meter-wide (3.2-foot) wingspan, they transport large quantities of pollen and rain down seeds in their poop, helping establish new trees. A new study in Scientific Reports provides the first economic valuation of the ecosystem services provided by flying foxes in Australia, focusing on their significant contribution to the timber industry.

Recent fires and heat stress events have led to colony loss and a dramatic drop in bat numbers; more than 80% of some populations have been wiped out amid extreme heat events. Justin Welbergen, an animal ecology professor at Western Sydney University who was not part of the study, told The New York Times, “A single hot afternoon can result in mortality on a regional scale and in biblical proportions, with tens of thousands of dead flying foxes.”

Flying foxes can travel thousands of kilometers per year, spreading pollen and seeds over large distances, making their economic value immense. First author Alfredo Ortega González, a University of Sydney scientist, said in a video interview with Mongabay, “There is no bird that can move the distance, on average, that a flying fox can move in a night.”

The study authors calculated the spatial extent of the bats’ nightly foraging, based on the locations of 1,209 roosts of four mainland Australian flying fox species (Pteropus poliocephalus, P. Alecto, P. scapulatus and P. conspicillatus). They used data compiled by Australia’s national science agency.

They combined that foraging data and estimates of the distances they travel with maps of suitable habitat to find the overall “Bat Ripple,” the spatial extent of ecosystem services the mammals provide. They found an overall area of influence up to 41.4 million hectares (102 million acres), nearly the size of Sweden.

To work out the value of bats for the timber industry, the authors focused on 465 roosts of the more well-studied grey-headed flying fox (P. poliocephalus). They found the 700-gram (1.5-pound) mammals overlapped with the eucalypt timber industry across 36,038 square kilometers (13,914 square miles) and may help regenerate up to 91.6 million trees per year.

Author Alexander Braczkowski said in an email to Mongabay that Australia’s flying foxes “may be responsible for generating between AUD $271 million and $955 million [$190 million to $668 million] annually for the Australian timber industry through their pollination services alone.”

The authors emphasize that these estimates are conservative and don’t include the broader value of bats for ecosystem health or their specific contributions to carbon sequestration.

Flying foxes deserve to be a conservation priority, said Ortega González, and he hopes the research helps dispel their reputation as noisy, smelly pests. “They are really important, much more important than the general public can imagine.”

Banner image: A grey-headed flying fox. Image by Lawrence Hylton, via iNaturalist (CC-BY).

Planting trees has become one of the most widely promoted responses to climate change. As forests grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while offering habitat for animals, plants and other organisms. The idea is straightforward: Expand forests, and the planet gains both climate mitigation and renewed biodiversity.

Yet the land required to remove large quantities of carbon from the atmosphere may place these goals in tension. Efforts to plant forests or cultivate bioenergy crops with carbon capture need vast areas. In some places, those projects could displace ecosystems that already support rich biodiversity. A recent analysis suggests that roughly 13% of globally important biodiversity areas overlap with land that climate models designate for carbon-removal projects, reports John Cannon.

The research, published in Nature Climate Change, examined five widely used models that outline pathways to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Ruben Prütz of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and his colleagues mapped where these models anticipate land-intensive carbon dioxide removal, such as new forests or bioenergy plantations. They then compared those locations with important wildlife habitats.

Previous work tended to analyze a single model and a narrower set of species. The new study expanded the scope to roughly 135,000 species, including fungi and invertebrates alongside plants and vertebrates. That broader view offers a more detailed sense of how climate mitigation plans might affect life on Earth.

Avoiding biodiversity hotspots entirely would sharply limit the land available for carbon-removal projects. According to the study’s calculations, the potential area for such efforts would fall by more than half by mid-century.

Scientists say the results should not be read as an argument against carbon removal. Forests can help slow warming and reduce climate stress on ecosystems. The researchers estimate that large-scale carbon removal could ultimately leave as much as a quarter more habitat available for biodiversity than in scenarios without it. The outcome depends on whether ecosystems recover as temperatures stabilize.

The study also highlights an uneven geography. Many of the lands identified for carbon removal lie in the Global South. That distribution raises questions about fairness, since wealthy countries have produced most of the emissions now warming the planet.

For many researchers the message is simple. Carbon removal may play a role, but reducing emissions remains the central task.

Read the full article by John Cannon here

Banner image: Agroforestry in Ethiopia. Image by Trees ForTheFuture via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

SAO PAULO (AP) — Marina Silva is stepping down as Brazil’s environment minister so that she can run for Congress in national elections. Under Brazilian law, ministers must leave office six months before the vote. Silva returned to the job in 2023 and helped drive a sharp drop in deforestation after major losses under former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Forest loss has fallen by more than half since 2022. Silva also rebuilt enforcement agencies and revived the Amazon Fund. However, experts say her influence have not stopped weaker licensing rules and and a push by current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for offshore oil drilling.

By Gabriela Sá Pessoa, Associated Press

Banner image: Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva smiles during a decree-signing ceremony on Environment Day at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, June 3, 2025.  Photo by Eraldo Peres via Associated Press

Seagrass meadows, which rarely draw the attention given to coral reefs or mangrove forests, perform a steady but important task: they help hold coasts in place.

The plants anchor themselves in sediment through dense root systems that bind the seabed, similar to how forests stabilize soil on land. Oscar Serrano Gras, a researcher affiliated with the Blanes Center for Advanced Studies in Spain and Edith Cowan University in Australia, told Mongabay contributor Sean Mowbray that these underwater meadows can form a natural barrier against erosion. Their structure also allows them to capture and store large amounts of carbon dioxide.

As climate change strengthens storms and extends their duration, many coastlines are facing more frequent flooding and infrastructure damage. The loss of seagrass reduces a layer of natural protection. Dense meadows slow water movement, reducing wave energy before it reaches shore. Heidi Nepf, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explained that the leaves create resistance to flowing water, weakening waves as they pass through the vegetation.

The details matter. Larger species with broader leaves interact more strongly with moving water. Neptune grass, common in the Mediterranean, can blunt waves far more effectively than smaller varieties such as dwarf eelgrass. At the same time, the plants stabilize sediments and gradually build them up. A study published in Nature in 2024 suggested that widespread loss of Neptune grass could lead to markedly higher water levels along parts of the Mediterranean coast.

Even so, scientists caution against treating seagrass as a standalone defense against storms. Maike Paul of Leibniz University Hannover, in Germany, said evidence linking seagrass to large-scale coastal protection remains incomplete. Engineered defenses will still be necessary in many places.

Yet the meadows deliver benefits that extend beyond shoreline stability. They host dense marine communities whose shells contribute sand to nearby beaches. They also filter sediments and pollutants from the water, improving conditions for ecosystems such as coral reefs.

Despite their value, seagrasses are declining. About 30% of global meadows have disappeared since the 19th century, largely because of coastal development, dredging and polluted runoff. Climate change is now adding further pressure. Marine heat waves in Australia have wiped out large stretches of seagrass meadow, releasing millions of tons of stored carbon and depriving animals such as dugongs of feeding grounds.

Restoration efforts are expanding, though they remain slow and costly. Scientists and volunteers often plant hundreds of seeds per square meter in painstaking trials. New approaches, including mechanical seeding devices and experiments with heat-tolerant strains, may help. Even so, the first priority is clear enough: preventing the remaining meadows from disappearing.

Read the full article here. 

Banner image: Cymodocea nodosa seagrass in Spain, also known as Little Neptune grass. Restoring and protecting seagrass can have climate and coastal protection benefits. Image courtesy of Liam McGuire/Ocean Image Bank.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil is finding protection in a decades-old buffer against shocks that is both cheap and environmentally friendly as global oil markets tremble amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tens of millions of Brazilian drivers have a choice at the pump: fill up with 100% sugarcane-based ethanol or a gasoline blend that contains 30% of biofuel. Brazil’s massive “flex-fuel” fleet, which are vehicles capable of running on any mix of ethanol and gasoline, is unique in its scale. It is the result of a landmark military dictatorship program launched in 1975, transformed into success during democratic times to reduce foreign oil dependency.

By Mauricio Savarese, Associated Press 

These eggs belong to a small octopus known in Argentinian Patagonia as pulperos. The Patagonian octopus (Octopus tehuelchus) is one of the more common octopus species in the region, but researchers still haven’t been able to determine its global conservation status, although reported catches in Patagonia have declined over the past 50 years.

The photo offers a rare glimpse into the early life of the species: The black dots inside each egg are the developing eyes of the embryos, indicating that they’re progressing toward hatching.

The female octopus of this species often lays her eggs in the shell of an oyster, then guards them fiercely. She even stops eating during this period.

The photo was taken in the intertidal boulders of Argentina’s Puerto Lobos Protected Natural Area by Martin Brogger, a researcher with the country’s Institute of Marine Organism Biology (IBIOMAR).

“Finding the nest was a very special moment,” Brogger told Mongabay by email. “Encountering egg clutches in situ always reinforces the idea of how much is happening beneath the surface, even in environments we think we know well.”

The species plays an important role as both predator and prey in coastal ecosystems ranging from Argentina’s Patagonia up to the southern coast of Brazil. While the species isn’t considered endangered, overfishing and habitat disturbances caused by human activity, common to coastal ecosystems, are active threats.

Banner image: Patagonian octopus eggs in Puerto Lobos Protected Natural Area in Argentina. Image courtesy of Martin Brogger.