Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Yellow fish swim in front of coral reef

Too Many Coral Restorations Fail. Treating Them Like Experiments Could Help Them Succeed.

Scientists suggest a new framework for coral restoration that could help safeguard them in a warming world

Andre Rovai measures mangrove growth in forest

Meet the Scientist Uncovering How Mangroves Can Help the U.S. Military

Smithsonian ecologist Andre Rovai studies how mangroves fight sea level rise, protecting military installations on the coast.

Left: Black and white image of a young man sitting at a desk, examining bird bones and holding a bird skull. Right: A young woman in an orange safety vest bends over a stream, collecting a water sample in a bottle.

Six Ways the Smithsonian Shaped Environmental Science in 60 Years

The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center turned 60 this year. We're celebrating with six of our favorite stories since 1965.

A young man and woman crouch on a wooden plank in a forest, with irrigation pipes across the ground. The man is pointing to a clear pipette in his hand.

Scientists Flooded a Forest to Catch a Ghost Forest in the Making. Here’s What They Found

Scientists sent hurricane-level floods into a Maryland forest to find out what extreme weather and sea-level rise mean for coastal woodlands

Gray smoke billows from fires on a mountainside, as seen from above.

Firefighting Planes Are Dumping Ocean Water on the Los Angeles Fires—Why Using Saltwater Is Typically a Last Resort

In Los Angeles, "Super Scooper" planes are dumping ocean water on the raging wildfires. But using seawater has downsides

A clear blue river winds through a reedy wetland, reflecting the clouds overhead. A wooden boardwalk with rails overlooks the river on the right.

Hot, Fresh & Flooded: These Wetlands Spew Out the Most Methane

Your local wetland could send hundreds of tons of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere every year. Or virtually none.

Head and shoulders photo of Denise Breitburg, a woman with glasses and shoulder-length gray hair, with forested mountains in the background.

Wait, the Ocean Is Losing Oxygen? Q&A With Denise Breitburg

Marine ecologist Denise Breitburg explains how oxygen loss is crippling our oceans, and why it needs to be included as the tenth "planetary boundary"

Uzay Sezen, wearing a red hard hat, kneels in a forest with a crossbow on his left and a sample of green leaves in front of him

How Crossbows Can Tell Us Which Genes Trees Are Turning On…and Off

What's a scientist to do, when you need to reach the highest leaves in the forest and a giant crane isn't an option? Learn to use a crossbow.

Pools of water flood a green marsh, under a misty sky

How Much Can Wetlands Fight Climate Change? A New Carbon Atlas Has The Answers.

The Coastal Carbon Atlas and Library map how wetlands store carbon around the world—and put open data to work for the environment.

Black monkey perches in a tree staring directly at camera

Eight Weird and Wondrous Discoveries From 2023

Life on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the true power of nature sanctuaries and more wild discoveries from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

Categories
Archive