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.
Maybe there’s room for wildife and renewables on a crowded planet
As the countries rush to build more solar and wind power, conservationists worry it could crowd out wildlife. A new forecast suggests there's room for both in many places.
A memo from the year 2050
Here's how we avoided the worst of zoonotic diseases
Is there such a thing as too much good habitat?
Panda researchers find that gene flow among pandas in a Chinese wildlife reserve is better in places with gaps in the bamboo forest.
Just because a forest is protected, doesn’t mean it won’t get logged
Scientists use satellites to track deforestation in forest reserves around the world, and to learn what factors make for stronger protections.
Reality Is Too Confining
We know that nature experiences can change environmental behavior—but it turns out those experiences don’t have to be real.
Seed dispersal is plummeting just when plants need to move most
When researchers trained a machine-learning model on global seed dispersal, they made a jarring discovery: there are too few animals to move plant seeds far enough to keep pace with climate change.
How to get cats to eat pests instead of songbirds
Creating "cat-free" zones in wooded parts of cities could blunt their impact on wildlife, and enlist them in the battle against rats, say scientists.
Using satellite imagery, researchers have built an automatic habitat loss detector
They then trained image change detection algorithms on “before and after” images of places that have recently been cleared, built on, or even covered in solar panels.
What’s the economic value of intact ecosystems compared to human-dominated ones?
The answer, researchers contend, depends on many factors—key among them, the price of carbon
Forests follow unexpected—and surprisingly fast—paths to recovery
A new study found that carbon, nitrogen and soil density in cleared forests reached 90% of levels in untouched forests after 1 to 9 years. They key was leaving them alone.
