Biodiversity Stories
In this new epoch, human influence is ubiquitous in the natural world. Coverage of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems in Anthropocene magazine takes a critical look at humans’ changing relationship with the natural world—and ways to promote biodiversity in the novel ecosystems we’ve created.
Q. Are vertebrate populations declining? A. Depends on how you look at the data
A new analysis complicates a popular metric of biodiversity decline.
The Curated Wild
Welcome to the brave new world of artificial intelligence for conservation
Insects and fallen trees are a potent duo when it comes to climate change
Climate change and declining insect populations could alter how wood rots in forests around the world, scientists say. The implications are big.
Letting Biodiversity Get Under Our Skin
Some aspects of dirty living can be healthy. A new study posits that the decline of plant and animal diversity in cities may be linked to the recent surge of allergies and other chronic inflammatory diseases.
When the smoke cleared in Australia, the frogs could still be heard
Researchers recruited an army of citizen scientists to record and log frog calls before and after Australian wildfires
As deciduous trees take over boreal forests, they could reverse carbon losses from massive fires
Researchers found that stands that had shifted to deciduous dominance had a net increase in carbon storage by a factor of five over the disturbance cycle
Researchers find a missing piece in coral reef restoration: crabs
They transplanted native crabs to degraded coral reefs patches to help clear out the seaweed. It worked better than they imagined.
What if we tracked a species recovery not just its extinction risk?
A team of 200+ scientists ran a first test to see whether the new IUCN green list, which focuses on recovery, actually helps conservation efforts.
Do feeders get birds hooked on human handouts?
Scientists in Oregon devised an experiment on black-capped chickadees to find out. The negative results surprised them.
There’s more cropland in protected areas than we might think
A study finds that crops occur in every category of protected habitat on the planet, making up 6% of all conserved land
