Australia’s marine World Heritage Sites are among the world’s largest stores of carbon dioxide according to a new report from the United Nations, co-authored by an ECU marine science expert.

Scientists measured the transfer of energy from single-celled algae (phytoplankton) to small animals that eat them (zooplankton).

An insecticide used to control pest infestations on squash and pumpkins significantly hinders the reproduction of ground-nesting bees — valuable pollinators for many food crops, a new University of Guelph study has revealed.

The maternal care of offspring is one of the behavioural drivers that has led some bee species to have an ever-expanding social life over the history of evolution, new research out of York University has found.

Savannah ecosystems, and regions with extreme wet or dry seasons were found to be the most sensitive to changes in fire frequency.

A Brazilian study published in Nature Communications shows that human activities have directly or indirectly caused biodiversity and biomass losses in over 80% of the remaining Atlantic Rainforest fragments.

According to the authors, in terms of carbon storage, the biomass erosion corresponds to the destruction of 70,000 square kilometers (km²) of forest – almost 10 million soccer pitches – or USD 2.3 billion-USD 2.6 billion in carbon credits. “These figures have direct implications for mechanisms of climate change mitigation,” they state in the article.

Atlantic Rainforest remnants in Brazil are strung along its long coastline. The biome once covered 15% of Brazil, totaling 1,315,460 km². Only 20% of the original area is now left. The fragments are of varying sizes and have different characteristics.

To estimate the impact of human activity on these remnants, the researchers used data from 1,819 forest inventories conducted by several research groups.

Read more at: Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo

Biodiversity and biomass losses in the biome using data from 1,819 forest inventories. In terms of carbon storage, the losses correspond to the destruction of 70,000 km² of forest, representing some USD 2.6 billion in carbon credits (Photo Credit: Renato de Lima/USP)

A new study published Feb. 24 in the journal Royal Society Open Science documents the earliest-known fossil evidence of primates.

A simple but powerful idea is to improve the health of corals using cocktails of beneficial bacteria.

Autonomous underwater vehicles have become versatile tools for exploring the seas. But they can be disruptive to the environment or have trouble traveling through confined spaces.

Anthropogenic noise pollution is plaguing our oceans and stressing marine fauna far more than previously understood, researchers concluded in a new analysis of more than 10,000 academic papers published in the journal Science.