ecology

In Northern California, the proportion of ticks infected with the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi was the same in shrubland along beaches as in woodland habitats.

After a nearly 30-year hunt, researchers have shown that a neurotoxin generated by cyanobacteria on invasive plants is responsible for eagle and waterbird deaths from vacuolar myelinopathy.

Scientists who work with foreign biological specimens face a patchwork of permits that threaten to block their projects, with potentially harmful consequences for the ecosystems they study.

Take a break from the bench to puzzle and peruse.

By growing mountainous star corals in the lab and outplanting them to dying reefs, we were able to grow sexually mature corals that could help reef recovery.

Novel technologies establish a new paradigm for global coral reef restoration, with in situ spawning of mature, environmentally resilient corals in five years instead of decades.

An experimental study explores how plant communities may be affected by future declines in invertebrate populations.

Our novel technique involves planting several small fragments of slow-growing corals onto dead coral heads. The fragments eventually fuse, forming a large colony in a fraction of the time that it takes wild corals to build reefs.

A volunteer nature guide teamed up with researchers to discover a unique reproductive role for one vine’s leaves.

Join The Scientist on March 19 to discuss Lulu Miller’s book about a determined taxonomist whose life and work constitute a fable illustrating the hazards of categorization.

The biologist at the University of Sunshine Coast in Australia wants to understand why some animal species adapt well to urbanization, while others fall flat.

One way to investigate the record-setting deaths of the marine mammals is to perform autopsies on them, but researchers are also taking a close look at living whales for clues to what could be killing them.

A global decline of large carnivores has motivated scientists to understand the animals’ ecological roles, and consider whether reintroducing them can help restore ecosystems.

As some conservationists and researchers begin to return large carnivores to areas where they once roamed, scientists intensify efforts to study the ecological roles of predators.

Long-lived species decrease their reproduction more than short-lived species in response to lower-than-normal precipitation, and thereby gain a survival advantage, a study finds.

In South Africa, the composition of droppings varies by species’ body sizes, and which animals are found where depends on vegetation density.

Knock-on effects of melting sea ice in the Arctic may be to blame for a spate of gray whale deaths along their migration route from Mexico to Alaska.

For the past two years, the charismatic marine mammals have washed up on Pacific shores in record numbers. Scientists investigating the strandings suspect warming waters and melting sea ice are partly to blame.

The release of gray wolves in Yellowstone decades ago still stands as one of the few examples of a predator reintroduction, and the lessons learned continue to be debated. New projects aim to do it again.