Ecosystems
Articles on ecosystems
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Agriculture
Healthy soils are life-giving black gold
Scientists explain why everyone needs to value the soils beneath our feet — and why we should not view them as dirt.
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Animals
Newfound technique allows some tree snakes to climb wide trees
When a tree is too wide to climb, brown tree snakes use a lasso-like trick to slowly ascend up to snacks.
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Ecosystems
Can people protect as much space as nature needs?
To save biodiversity, nations are drafting a plan to protect 30 percent of Earth by 2030. Up for debate is how best to do that.
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Animals
Scientists Say: Lachryphagy
Some insects land on the eyeballs of larger animals. They are seeking out the salt and proteins in the animal’s tears.
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Oceans
Analyze This: Shipwrecks provide a home for bottom-dwelling fish
Fish have found a habitat in a submarine and freighter that sunk to the seafloor during World War II.
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Animals
Around the world, birds are in crisis
Human activities around the world are threatening bird species. Numbers of even some of the most common species are starting to fall.
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Genetics
Scientists Say: Evolution
Evolution is how species change over time. Individuals in the group vary, and some will pass on their genes. Over time, the whole species changes.
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Animals
Analyze This: Ropes restore a gibbon highway through a rainforest
When endangered Hainan gibbons started making risky leaps across an area mowed down by a landslide, researchers provided them a rope bridge.
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Environment
Jumping ‘snake worms’ are invading U.S. forests
These bad-news invaders are spreading across the United States. As they turn forest debris into bare ground, soils and ecosystems are changing.
By Megan Sever -
Environment
Polluting microplastics harm both animals and ecosystems
Researchers are beginning to uncover the real-world impacts of polluting microplastic bits on animals and the ecosystems they inhabit.
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Plants
The faster trees grow, the younger they die
As climate change spurs forest tree growth, it also shortens trees’ lives. That results in a quicker release of climate-warming carbon back into the atmosphere.
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Animals
Whales get a second life as deep-sea buffets
When a whale dies and sinks to the seafloor, it becomes a feast for hundreds of different types of creatures.