Earth
Analyze This: Tropical forests have gotten patchier
Although many of the world's forests have gotten less fragmented since 2000, tropical forests have gotten more chopped up, putting animals at risk.
Ecosystems
Articles on ecosystems
More Stories in Ecosystems
- Ecosystems
Scientists Say: Food web
All the species in an ecosystem and the feeding relationships between them get summed up with this handy picture.
- Fossils
Ocean life may have bounced back after the ‘Great Dying’
Marine ecosystems may have been back in action just a million years after the most severe extinction event known.
- Ecosystems
Let’s learn about how wildfires keep ecosystems healthy
Wildfires are so important for many ecosystems that sometimes professionals set them on purpose.
- Animals
Study finds big drop in animal populations since 1970
But the same thing is not happening throughout the kingdom. For instance, more than half of vertebrate populations are stable or increasing.
- Animals
If mosquitoes vanished, would we miss them? Vampire spiders might
Vampire spiders get their meals from blood-filled Anopheles mosquitoes. But if those insects disappear, the spiders will likely adapt.
- Animals
Some spikes in malaria cases may be tied to amphibian die-offs
Amphibian deaths from a fungal disease may have led to more mosquitoes — and an increase in malaria cases in Costa Rica and Panama.
- Animals
Let’s learn about parasites that create zombies
Some parasites turn their victims into mindless puppets that do the parasites’ bidding, even at the cost of their own lives.
- Animals
Several mammals use a South American tree as their pharmacy
Researchers in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest stumbled onto something very strange. They watched as animals “doctored” themselves with products from a tree.
- Animals
Some ecologists value parasites — and now want a plan to save them
Parasites get a bad rap as disease-causing, unwelcome guests on other organisms. But parasites are also imperiled, and scientists don’t want to lose them.
