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Category: Ecosystems

  • Mistletoe As Keystone Species

    Three years after the mistletoe vanished, so had more than a third of the bird species, including those that fed on insects. Bird diversity is considered an indicator of overall diversity. Where mistletoe remained, bird species increased slightly. It was a similar story for some mammals and reptiles, but, in another surprise, particularly for those that fed on insects on the forest floor.

  • Planting Prairies at Airports Could Make Flying Safer

    A recent study concluded that large, flocking birds are less common in prairie areas than in turf areas or agricultural land. Although he “wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a solution…this whole idea of alternative land use could be one part of a really successful strategy” to reduce strikes

  • Why (and when) Trees Evolved To Live Underground

    Some trees, however, have evolved strategies to cope with the constant threat of fire. There are species, for instance, that developed thick insulating corky bark to protect the tree even when it is burning. More extraordinary, however, are the trees that moved underground.

  • ‘Guns kill trees too’: overhunting raises extinction threat for trees

    “Unless steps are taken to reduce hunting pressure on animal seed dispersers, the integrity of tropical forests is at risk,” he noted, adding that “the threat of overhunting to tropical forests is particularly worrisome, because overhunting could degrade even forests that are protected from logging, fire and other disturbances. And if animal-dispersed trees decline, we risk losing valuable ecosystem services, including carbon storage, biodiversity, and wild populations of important commercial tree species.”

  • How Salmon Feed The Forest (video)

    The Great Bear Rainforest is the largest temperate rainforest in the world. This huge and pristine wilderness depends on an unlikely source for its long-term survival – the salmon which spawn in its rivers and creeks.

  • What If The Lemur Gardeners Of Madagascar Disappear?

    What got us interested is that frugivorous lemur populations are declining across the island, and we know very little about how these seed dispersers actually affect tree populations. Once we understand that better, maybe we’ll have a better idea of how the community might change if the lemurs disappear.

  • Preserves For Elephants Do Not Preserve Forests

    While overall numbers of African elephant have declined dramatically in recent times, some populations are now confined to protected areas and are locally overabundant—an undesirable situation for both biodiversity conservation and elephants.

  • The Amazon Rainforest Shall Be No More

    The “vegetation-climate equilibrium is teetering on the brink of the abyss.” If it tips, the Amazon will start to become a much drier savanna, which calamitous consequences.

  • Although You Plant It They Won’t Come: Green Does Not Mean Biodiversity

    Planting a tree in the city is not sufficient to then have walnut flies and the wasps that attack those walnut flies. We think there’s something about the city that changes those dynamics, those interactions between plants and flies and the insects that eat those flies.

  • Invasive Plant Colonizes Mudflats, Creating New Food Web

    The invader creates conditions that appear to support a food web where it couldn’t exist before