A new Nature publication shows how soil invertebrates influence the world beneath our feet and thus also ecosystem services worldwide. Since the Industrial Revolution, global changes have led to a decline in biodiversity. To address these changes, it is crucial to understand what constitutes healthy ecosystems – and how to protect and build them. A…
Environmental Degradation, Climate Change and Infectious Diseases: What’s the Link? Anthropogenic changes in global landscapes and the climate increase the risk of infectious diseases by altering the environmental niche of the disease vector or animal reservoir hosts and the adaptation of some pathogens to a warming planet. — The One Health approach, developed by the…
Some efforts to preserve or rewild natural habitats are shifting harmful land use to other parts of the world – and this could drive an even steeper decline in the planet’s species, according to a team of conservation scientists and economists led by the University of Cambridge. Researchers from over a dozen institutions worldwide have…
Science tells us invasive species — like the spotted tilapia — are always on the move, making it difficult for scientists to simulate their spread and predict where they will go next. Researchers at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences took a deep dive to understand why certain locations are more…
New, groundbreaking research shows how, at a local scale, agricultural research and development led to improved crop varieties that resulted in global benefits to the environment and food system sustainability. The Purdue University study appears in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “At the global level, we see a reduction…
As grasslands get abandoned, controlled burning is discussed as a labor-saving method of keeping forests at bay. A Kobe University research team found that this method results in higher biodiversity and a higher prevalence of endangered plant species in some grasslands compared to others, depending on what soils they grow on. Humans have been keeping…
In the most comprehensive global analysis of genetic diversity ever undertaken, an international team of scientists has found that the genetic diversity is being lost across the globe but that conservation efforts are helping to safeguard species. The landmark study, published in the pre-eminent scientific journal Nature, was led by Associate Professor Catherine Grueber from…
Back in 2016, one of us (Silviu Petrovan) was asked to identify a live frog found in a shipment of roses in Sheffield, England. It certainly wasn’t any species found in Europe: Silviu thought he had been pranked. But with help from Ecuadorian and Colombian scientists, he was soon able to identify it as a…
For generations, Lars Miguel Utsi’s family has lived in the small town of Jokkmokk in northern Sweden, where reindeer husbandry is a way of life. In a part of the world where most of us would see just an endless expanse of white snow, Utsi perceives the landscape in intricate detail, recognizing subtle features of…
Insights from the First Global Appraisal of Life Below the Earth’s Surface Which microbes thrive below us in darkness – in gold mines, in aquifers, in deep boreholes in the seafloor – and how do they compare to the microbiomes that envelop the Earth’s surfaces, on land and sea? The first global study to embrace…