Forest trees growing in air containing higher levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) radically change the way they ‘cycle’ nitrogen, a key plant nutrient, with implications for forests as a nature-based climate solution.

Satellite-derived maps of defoliation caused by European spongy moths – a devastating U.S. forest pest that consumes the leaves of a wide variety of trees – offer a promising solution for tracking where and when to spray and for identifying large scale trends and conditions that lead to pest outbreaks, according to a new study.

An international team, including researchers at the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, has revealed striking trade-offs between the different ways eggs are produced, with a wholesale shift to free-range and organic systems potentially raising greenhouse gas emissions and land use even as it aligns more closely with concerns about hen welfare. 

A new study on how rising temperatures will affect rice production in Science Advances compares 214 observations from field-warming experiments with seven crop models, revealing modelled estimates for yield reductions from 1°C of global warming were roughly half those of the real-world observed experiments (3.8 percent instead of 8.1 percent).

Researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have clarified how the herbicide chlorimuron-ethyl affects nitrogen cycling in soybean rhizosphere soils and demonstrated that a chlorimuron-ethyl-degrading bacterial strain, Chenggangzhangella methanolivorans CHL1, can help restore ecological stability in contaminated soils.

Last fall, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers asked the question: Can Hawaiʻi grow rice again? 

The use of small, controlled burns to clear out flammable underbrush has saved thousands of giant sequoias from devastating wildfires, new research finds.

Human activities are fundamentally altering the chemical makeup of local coral reefs, according to a study led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and published in Nature Communications. 

The mountain jewelflower inhabits a wide swath of California and Oregon, from summer-scorched foothills to high mountains where snow falls during winter.

Humans have been turning seeds and soil into food for thousands of years.