Research

On an expedition in the tepuis, or “sprouting rock,” landscape of the Guiana Highlands in South America, Mateusz Wrazidlo snapped a photo of an orchid he had never seen before.…

Held aloft by a canopy crane nearly 10 stories above the forest floor, Susan Kirmse observed and collected beetles in the rainforest canopy for an entire year. What did she…

Tropical trees have shorter life spans than trees in other parts of the world, living, for example, just over half as long as temperate trees. A new analysis suggests that,…

Smallholders and family farms, Indigenous people, rural women, youth, and landless rural communities are being squeezed into increasingly smaller parcels of land or forced out entirely as global land inequality…

When Celso Silva Junior, a Ph.D. candidate at the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE), stepped back from his recently completed map of Brazil’s secondary forests, he was surprised by…

Nearly 2 billion people live within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of a forest, and many rely on forests directly as a source of livelihood. But forests also play a critical…

As more trees die in the Amazon Basin, the forest’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide weakens. But to understand why trees are dying at a faster rate, researchers first need…

It was another intense year for fires in the Amazon. More than 2,500 major blazes burned across Brazil’s Legal Amazon between May 28 and November 3, according to a fire…

Integrating aquatic biodiversity into conservation planning could yield substantial benefits for freshwater species with minimal cost to terrestrial creatures, according to a study published in Science last month. Conservation areas…

JAKARTA — Palm oil giant Korindo Group is alleged to have set fires to clear rainforest in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, a practice that is banned by law. The…

Catching a caribou isn’t easy. In some locations, it involves flying around in helicopters, shooting the animal with a tranquilizer dart, making it safely to the ground, and placing a…

  When a peregrine falcon crashed through the skylight of a high-rise building in Lima, Peru, what impressed falcon researchers was not its tremendous speed (peregrines are the fastest animal…

Videos and images of slow lorises being “tickled” have gone viral: their large eyes peering out, tiny arms raised overhead. But, as it turns out, the loris isn’t tickled to…

JAKARTA — An evolutionary crucible in Indonesia that’s given rise to a unique array of primates found nowhere else on Earth is at risk of disappearing due to rapid deforestation,…

The past decade began with promise, as nearly every country on the planet made commitments to protect large areas of land, safeguarding global biodiversity amid the ongoing sixth mass extinction.…

Since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2016, 300 companies at risk for contributing to deforestation have received at least $153.9 billion in financing, according to a new analysis…

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the world, much of the blame for the human and economic devastation caused by the virus has been directed toward China.…

An adult male jaguar nicknamed “Short-Tail” (due to his partially missing tail) was caught on camera in both Belize and Guatemala, making him the first individual confirmed to cross the…

European spiny lobsters create quite the rumble. By rubbing an antenna across its face, a spiny lobster can create a sound that might, under the right underwater conditions, be detectable…

Life can’t function without insects. At least, not for long. Dutifully, they pollinate, break down waste, cycle nutrients, move seeds, and touch every node in the web of life, filling…

The famed entomologist Terry L. Erwin, a prolific scholar who revolutionized the scientific understanding of the diversity of life on Earth and set up some of the world’s first global…

Have you ever stepped outside on a hot, humid day and — instantly starting to sweat — told yourself that the temperature must be higher than what the thermometer says?…

Satellites are an excellent tool for monitoring forests. Those who work in the areas of forest management, policy development and environmental conservation are increasingly making use of these eyes in…

The meerkat mobs of the Kalahari Desert fend off snakes and feast on scorpions, but a new foe is wearing them down: the slowly creeping heat of the day. Over…

JAKARTA — The oil palm processing industry has become the biggest threat to the iconic and endangered proboscis monkeys of Indonesian Borneo, a new study has found. The study, published…

Some 45,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers in the rainforests of Sri Lanka hunted down small tree-dwelling animals like monkeys and giant squirrels using small stone tools called microliths, a new study…

For Muntasir Akash, it all started with a photo in a news report in early June. The photo showed a canine-like animal, beaten and dead, legs splayed, hanging from makeshift…

JAKARTA — The loss of tropical rainforests the world over is a major contributor to the global climate crisis. But that loss isn’t irreversible, according to a new study that…

The way humans have changed the forests of Central and South America may be making it impossible for subsistence hunters to continue their way of life, according to two conservation…

Nearly 53,000 western chimpanzees live in the forests and savannas of West Africa, a higher number than previously thought, according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Research…