Species Richness

Tonka bean trees survive lightning strikes — and use the powerful electric shocks to kill their competitors.

At a tranquil nature reserve in South Michigan, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist and her collaborators connected olden wild bee sample collections and modern technology to better decode the ecological traits and habits of pollinators, critical links to environmental stability.

Sharing increasingly crowded spaces could result in greater risk of pandemics, human and animal conflicts and loss of nature, say researchers

Climate change will have a considerable influence on the biodiversity and productivity of meadows and pastures. However, according to the results of the large-scale climate and land use experiment, the extent of these changes depends on the land use. A team of researchers from UFZ and iDiv has found that grassland optimized for high yield responds much more sensitively to periods of drought than less intensively…

Renowned for a thriving and intricately studied population of around 900 red deer, the Isle of Rum, part of Scotland's Inner Hebrides, is often considered an outdoor laboratory for scientific research. But the earthworms on Rum are equally remarkable. These invertebrates act as "ecosystem engineers", actively shaping the landscape, often after humans have left their mark on this remote island.

Europe's forests have already been severely affected by climate change. Thousands of hectares of trees have already died due to drought and bark beetles. Scientists from the University of Vienna and the Technical University of Munich TUM have now investigated which trees can be used for reforestation.

As urban expansion quickly replaces natural habitats, façade engineer Alistair Law has discovered a new way to restore native ecosystems for pollinators

Pudella carlae is the first living cervid species described in the 21st century and the first from the New World in over six decades.

Amid an alarming surge in global habitat destruction and species extinction, new research by an international team of scientists proposes a new global approach to choosing protected lands that could reduce species extinction risk twice as efficiently as current methods.

The aquatic ecosystem functioning is at risk of being disrupted by the stoichiometric mismatch between phytoplankton and zooplankton. When climate warming or eutrophication acted individually, the increase in nutrient demand for zooplankton growth resulted in a growing trend in the stoichiometric mismatch with phytoplankton.

Birds native to the tropical Andes, many of which cannot be found anywhere else, are threatened by increasing agricultural development in the region. A new study details how the resulting habitat loss affects specific species and lays out possible ways to protect birds from human-driven disturbance.

Wageningen scientists have simulated the evolution of biodiversity through a mathematical approach. In doing so, they proved the long-held belief among biologists that biodiversity creates robust ecosystems. The researchers published their results in Theoretical Ecology.

Underwater speakers playing healthy coral reefs noises double the amount of fish on damaged reefs, giving scientists hope that sound could be used to help restore them.

Nitrogen saturation refers to the phenomenon that the net primary productivity of an ecosystem—a fundamental ecosystem function and also a measure of carbon (and energy) sequestration by the ecosystem—tends to initially increase with increasing nitrogen input, and then stops increasing after the nitrogen input amount reaches a certain level.

In one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, scientists are charting the amazing web of life.

Who hasn't received a pot of homegrown honey from a friend or relative who decided to take up urban beekeeping? The sentiment behind the gift is sweet, but their newfound interest in urban agriculture may be adversely affecting local biodiversity.

Researchers suggested that moose were contributing to climate change by effecting vegetation growth and the carbon cycle in Norwegian forests.

There is much more to avian biodiversity in the United States than the number of different species living in a given region or community, but the diversity of birds' ecosystem contributions—assessed through measures of their diet, body structure and foraging methods—are much tougher to study.

Fish, the most biodiverse vertebrates in the animal kingdom, present evolutionary biologists a conundrum: The greatest species richness is found in the world's tropical waters, yet the fish groups that generate new species most rapidly inhabit colder climates at higher latitudes.

Agriculture is considered a major disturbance for ecological systems—the recovery of degraded or formally used agricultural land might take a long time.