Ecology

The Ten Best Children's Books of 2017

Our picks are full of silly words, weird animals and unknown histories

A juvenile Western chimpanzee in the Bossou Forest of Mont Nimba, Guinea.

Western Chimpanzees Have Declined By 80 Percent Over The Past 25 Years

The largest population of these animals—the only critically endangered chimp subspecies—sits in a region riddled with bauxite mines

Over Three Quarters of Flying Insects Disappear From German Nature Preserves

A combination of habitat loss, pesticide use and climate change may be behind the dramatic three-decade decline

How Flowers Manipulate Light to Send Secret Signals to Bees

Come-hither blue haloes are just one of the effects employed by nature’s first nanotechnologists

The only specimen ever collected of the erstwhile species Phyllastrephus leucolepis, or the Liberian Greenbul

The Elusive Songbird Species That Likely Never Existed

After fruitless hunts for a Liberian songbird, DNA analysis suggests that the species is not new

Humans overwhelmingly rely on only a few crops like wheat, making our food supplies vulnerable to climate change

Just a Few Species Make Up Most of Earth's Food Supply. And That's a Problem

The looming threat of extinction from climate change makes the lack of diversity in the world's food supplies a dangerous prospect

This NASA Landsat image shows the Mackenzie River surrounding the town of Inuvik, and the uniquely pock-marked landscape of this delta.

With Federal Funds Dwindling, Climate Scientists Turn to Unusual Partnerships to Study Methane in a Warming Arctic

As the urgency of climate change becomes tangible to those in the Arctic, federal funds are growing harder to come by

Easter Island's famed statues could be remnants of a populous civilization

Lots of Sweet Potatoes Could’ve Made Easter Island a Bustling Place

A new agricultural analysis of the island finds that the crop could have supported more than 17,000 people

A European bison, also referred to as a wisent

A Wild Bison Was Spotted in Germany for the First Time in Two Centuries. Then It Was Shot

As conservationists work to restore the once mighty European bison, they must face misunderstandings from concerned citizens

Taken in 1938, this image captures one of the once abundant Javan tigers. Hunting drove the big cats to extinction.

Long Thought Extinct, Javan Tiger May Have Been Spotted in Indonesia

Last sighted in 1976, many are hopeful that the Javan tiger still lives

Kangaroo herds dominate Australians ecosystem today, outcompeting other organisms

To Save Australia's Ecosystem, Ecologists Say Eat Kangaroos

With a soaring population, the iconic marsupials are overwhelming other species and may soon run out of food

Monarch butterflies nesting in California in the winters have declined rapidly since 1981

West Coast Monarch Butterflies Flutter Toward Extinction

Since 1981, the butterfly's numbers have declined 97 percent according to a new survey

We hear a lot about the over-extraction of oil, but less about the consequences of the sand trade.

The World is Running Out of Sand

The little-known exploitation of this seemingly infinite resource could wreak political and environmental havoc

Tapeworms, like this one imaged using a scanning electron micrograph, weaken their victims but don't typically kill them.

The World's Parasites Are Going Extinct. Here’s Why That’s a Bad Thing

Up to one-third of parasite species could vanish over the next few decades, disrupting ecosystems and even human health

Costa Rica's Guanacaste region is among the country's many beautiful ecological zones—and the waste from local juice company is helping keep it that way.

Costa Rica Let a Juice Company Dump Their Orange Peels in the Forest—and It Helped

How a controversial experiment actually bore fruit

An environmental sample processor is lowered into Lake Erie.

Underwater Robot Labs Monitor Toxins

The labs have been deployed in Lake Erie, where blooms of toxic algae have made water undrinkable in past years.

The Joshua tree is one of the Mojave Desert's most iconic inhabitants. But it's under threat—and the key to saving it may lie in better understanding its tiny winged partner.

How a Tree and Its Moth Shaped the Mojave Desert

The partnership between the Joshua tree and the yucca moth may be key to understanding how plants and insects co-evolve

The well-preserved nodosaur fossil

Was the "Sleeping Dragon" Dinosaur a Red Head?

A new study suggests the perfectly preserved armored nodosaur camoflauged itself against marauding meat-eaters

Little does it know, but getting eaten by a great tit is the least of this grub's worries.

Meet the Supervillain Worm That Gets By With a Little Help From Its Friends

This deadly nematode and its sidekicks reveal the power of bacterial symbiosis

Here, wildebeest find themselves trapped by high cliffs while crossing the Mara River in Africa's Serengeti. Every year thousands of wildebeest die while crossing the river due to strong currents or crossing at dangerous sites.

The Upside of Rotting Carcasses

Large animals dying en masse are crucial to the the Serengeti—and they aren’t the only ones

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