Feature Channels: Nature

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Marine communities migrated to Antarctica during the Earth’s warmest period in 66 million years long before a mass-extinction event.

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Climate experts from Florida Atlantic University, Archbold Biological Station, and Live Wildly Foundation will speak and answer questions from the media on the Florida Wildlife Corridor (FLWC) and Climate Change managing Florida’s Natural and Human Landscapes for Prosperity and Resilience

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According to a research team led by palaeontologists from the University of Vienna, the net-like leaf veining typical for today’s flowering plants developed much earlier than previously thought, but died out again several times.

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The chloroplast (cp) is critical for various biological functions in plants, such as photosynthesis and stress responses, with its genome offering simpler analysis and sequencing due to its size and reduced homologous influence.

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A research team has unveiled 20 β-galactosidase (BGAL) genes within the longan genome, highlighting their crucial roles in embryogenic development and heat stress adaptation.

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A research team reviews the critical relationship between the accumulation of anthocyanins and organic acids in fruits, highlighting how these factors influence fruit color and consumer appeal through changes in vacuolar pH.

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The transition from vegetative to reproductive stages in plants involves both internal and external cues, with grapevines (Vitis vinifera L. cv. Pixie) presenting a unique case.

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The research unveils the superior tolerance of 'Shuzhen No.1', a novel Citrus junos rootstock, to flooding, alkaline, and freezing stresses over commonly used rootstocks. Grafted scions on 'Shuzhen No.1' exhibited enhanced growth and vigor, making it a promising candidate for future citrus cultivation.

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A team of researchers has unveiled a novel approach to accurately characterizing tree height composition in forests using the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology.

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While asleep, the area of birds’ brains dedicated to singing remains active, triggering vocal muscles without producing sound. In Chaos from AIP Publishing, researchers translate the muscle activity to synthesize the songs of avian dreams. Reproducing distinctive bird calls provides a window into the contents of the bird’s dreams.

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For the first time in more than 200 years, billions of cicadas - two different broods - will emerge from the ground at the same time. These two different broods have not been seen together since the 1800s. But, as Virginia Tech entomologist Doug Pfeiffer explained not everyone will see this once in a lifetime spectacle.

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Soil microbes use volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as a food source but can also release VOCs as gases that enter the atmosphere.

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A new study reveals compelling evidence that forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council®(FSC®) in Gabon and the Republic of Congo harbour a higher abundance of larger mammals and critically endangered species, such as gorillas and elephants, compared to non-FSC certified forests.

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Severe droughts and wildfires, invasive species, and large insect outbreaks are straining national forests and surrounding lands. A new report outlines a new approach to forest stewardship that “braids together” Indigenous knowledge and Western science to conserve and restore more resilient forestlands in the U.S.

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Researchers have introduced an innovative underwater vest equipped with an antioxidant MXene hydrogel for the sensitive recognition of fish locomotion. This novel device aims to deepen our understanding of aquatic life by enabling precise monitoring of fish behavior in their natural habitats.

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The path to quantum supremacy is made challenging by the issues associated with scaling up the number of qubits. One key problem is the way that qubits are measured.

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Research has uncovered important new insights into the evolution of oxygen, carbon, and other vital elements over the entire history of Earth – and it could help assess which other planets can develop life, ranging from plants to animals and humans.

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Children who live in areas with natural spaces (e.g., forests, parks, backyards) from birth may experience fewer emotional issues between the ages of 2 and 5, according to a study funded by the NIH Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program.

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Meet Michael Strickland and Zachary Kayler, associate professors in the Department of Soil and Water Systems at University of Idaho. They are leading a national contingency of scientists in building what amounts to huge terrariums at U of I: all to study a world that scientists still don’t understand — the deep soils under our feet.

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In the context of global warming, natural vegetations have been altered worldwide in spite of they are far away in the niches. Warming plus precipitation increase can extend the distributions of forest, grassland and savanna northwards while cooling plus drought may drive the tundra towards the equator.

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For millions of years, underground fungi have lived in symbiosis with plant roots. Researchers have been able to study both sides of this interaction up close, using RNA sequencing to understand gene expression: one of the first cross-kingdom spatially-resolved transcriptomics studies to date.

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As highlighted by both national and international media, a severe winter weather disaster—the phenomenon known as a ‘dzud’—during the 2023-2024 winter has presented unprecedented challenges for the people of Mongolia.

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Ten years later, data gathered in Brazil have proven highly influential across atmospheric science

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While climate change has led to an increase in the abundance of octopuses, heat stress from projected ocean warming could impair their vision and impact the survivability of the species.

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By analyzing 42 years worth of canned salmon, University of Washington scientists show that levels a common marine parasite rose in two salmon species in the Gulf of Alaska from 1979 to 2021. The rise may be a sign of ecosystem recovery, possibly influenced by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.

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A new research paper in the Journal of Threatened Taxa has confirmed for the first time the nesting of a reintroduced female Siamese crocodile. Two hatchlings resulted from the nesting, and they are now being head-started, raised by conservationists in captivity until they are old enough to be successfully released into the wild.

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Meet Kenny Wallen, an assistant professor of human dimensions in the Department of Natural Resources and Society at the University of Idaho. Everyone has opinions about how Idaho’s natural resources should be used.

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Using cutting-edge computational methods and supercomputing infrastructure at UC San Diego, researchers have built the largest and most detailed bird family tree to date—an intricate chart delineating 93 million years of evolutionary relationships between 363 bird species, representing 92% of all bird families.

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To woo a mate, the Albert’s Lyrebird of Australia becomes a real song-and-dance bird. Each male first chooses a stage of entangled vines, then in performance he shakes the vines as part of his courtship footwork, synchronizing each shake with the beat of his striking song.

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Research highlights the potential significance of ectomycorrhizal fungi diversity in promoting forest ecosystem health and strengthening the symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizae and host plants.

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The following statement was released today by Central Park Zoo:Postmortem testing has been completed for Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl that was found down in the courtyard of a Manhattan building a little over a year after his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo was vandalized on February 2, 2023.

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According to the traditional model of nuclear shells, oxygen-28 is expected to be a doubly magic nucleus with 20 neutrons and 8 protons. However, an experiment performed at the Rare Isotope Beam Facility in Japan measured the direct decay of oxygen-28 into four neutrons and oxygen-24 and found that it is not a bound nucleus.

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“USFICA would create a public-private partnership to save wildlife and wild places around the world. What that means is government funds would leverage private support, making public dollars go much farther. And those monies would go directly to protected areas and parks around the world.” John Calvelli, WCS Executive VP for Public Affairs

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In a new study recently published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology, an international team of scientists led by palaeobiologist Julia Türtscher from the University of Vienna has explored the puzzling world of rays that lived 150 million years ago and discovered a previously hidden diversity – including a new ray species.

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In natural environments, plants encounter biotic and abiotic stresses that can significantly affect their productivity and health.

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Roots play a vital role in plant health, adapting to environmental changes and indicating crop growth.

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Animal reproductive medicine, theriogenology, helps with breeding and conservation of species, says Tufts University faculty member.

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A study led by University of Florida scientists published today in the journal of Trends and Ecology and Evolution advocates for change to promote standardized practices in the field – a practice that has been missing from the science.

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Funding of field conservation research stations worldwide has been drastically reduced since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, raising the alarm for more than 170 conservation researchers representing 157 field stations in 56 countries in a new paper published in Conservation Letters.

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The blue whale genome was published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, and the Etruscan shrew genome was published in the journal Scientific Data.

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Leafhoppers, a common backyard insect, secrete and coat themselves in tiny mysterious particles that could provide both the inspiration and the instructions for next-generation technology, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers.

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A study highlights the significant advancements in water environment analysis facilitated by the Landsat missions. This research, for the first time, offers a comprehensive global assessment of cloud-free observations (NCOs) from Landsat, underscoring its pivotal role in environmental and hydrological studies.

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Researchers from the University of Arizona and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy user facility, discovered that that plants can maintain specific microbe partnerships during times of drought, revealing a new level of resilience.

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Born this winter, Bobbin, 7 weeks old; and Sage, 3 weeks old have joined a flock of 8 adult sheep in the Tisch Children’s Zoo.

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Recent studies highlight a significant transformation in China’s urban landscape, where the greening of city cores is compensating for vegetation loss in expanding urban areas.

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A recent study reveals significant shifts in the composition of global forests and their carbon stocks from 2001 to 2020.

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The fertility of both female and male tsetse flies is affected by a single burst of hot weather, researchers at the University of Bristol and Stellenbosch University in South Africa have found.

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New research led by the University of South Australia explains how eating faeces (known as coprophagy) shapes wild birds’ digestive tracts (gut biota), enabling them to absorb lost or deficient nutrients and adjust to seasonal variations in food sources.

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The researchers carried out a hybridization experiment between female koi carp and male Chinese rare minnow, eventually obtaining allodiploid and allotriploid hybrid offspring. They made a systemic comparison between them and found that the triploid hybrids showed faster growth, higher expression of growth-promoting genes and lower expression of growth-inhibiting genes than the diploid hybrids. This study provides implications to explain the faster growth of polyploid fish.