Two Araguaian botos swimming together. Photo credit: Gabriel Melo Alves dos Santos Seven years ago, Gabriel Melo Alves dos Santos happened upon a remarkable sight: a rare and highly reclusive Amazonian river dolphin, the Araguaian river dolphin, gathering in numbers at a marketplace along the Tocantins River in the Amazonian […]
Image credit: Jordan Kraft Whether or not humans are growing increasingly distanced from nature is a perennially popular question in our technological age. Actually measuring changes in this supposed distance poses a thorny challenge. Past researchers have measured the proportion of “nature-related words” in song lyrics, without asking whether this […]
Itaipú Dam. Image credit: Escuela de Organización Industrial Hydropower – the energy generated from flowing water – is renewable and emits relatively low amounts of carbon dioxide. Many see the expansion of hydropower as a way to offset fossil fuel-derived energy. In keeping with its green nature, environmental regulations exist […]
Image: The butterfly European Skipper (Thymelicus lineola), photo by Ole Martin. A group from Aarhus University, Denmark discovered that insects leave DNA traces on the plants that they visit. Their discovery opens up a whole new way of identifying insect-plant interactions, tracking pollinators – especially endangered ones, and managing pest […]
Image credit:https://www.motherjones.com/food/2014/04/california-almond-farms-blamed-honeybee-die/ Every February in the United States, beekeepers from around the nation pack up their colonies and head to California to pollinate the Golden State’s almond trees. Almond growers pay around USD$300 million to rent these hives and without the bees, there would quite simply be no almonds. In 2014, […]
Image source: https://colombiareports.com/chiribiquete-national-park-in-heart-of-colombian-amazon-to-more-than-double-in-size/ War inflicts plenty of damage upon ecosystems (among other things), but peace carries its own pitfalls. In a study recently published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Drs. Dolors Armenteras, Laura Schneider and Liliana María Dávalos, of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Rutgers and Stony Brook, respectively, describe how the Colombian […]
Image source: https://aggietranscript.ucdavis.edu/the-relationship-between-genetic-diversity-and-disturbance-in-the-eelgrass-species-zostera-marina/ Blue carbon (Blue C) is the carbon stored in coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows. Correctly measuring the amount of carbon stored in these habitats is vital to avoid costly distortions in carbon markets and to efficiently manage conservation efforts. Recent research, however, […]