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Gardens offer a steady and reliable source of nectar all year round, helping to keep pollinators fed when farmland sources are limited, researchers have discovered. This consistency means that even small patches of gardens in rural areas can sustain pollinators, particularly in early spring and late summer when nectar is scarce.

A huge fish in the Mekong River thought to be extinct has been spotted three times in recent years.

Polar bears in some parts of the high Arctic are developing ice buildup and related injuries to their feet, apparently due to changing sea ice conditions in a warming Arctic. While surveying the health of two polar bear populations, researchers found lacerations, hair loss, ice buildup and skin ulcerations primarily affecting the feet of adult bears as well as other parts of the body....

Twenty-two new species of gall wasps have been identified and named for the first time, thanks to new research led by a Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences graduate student.

Changing precipitation patterns in the Neotropics, one of Earth's most biodiverse regions, could threaten two-thirds of the area's bird species by the year 2100 if climate change goes unchecked, according to new research led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and George Mason University. This would represent a dramatic loss, as the region is home to 30% of all bird species globally.

Using plastic sheets for weed control, even under current best management practices, pollutes soil with macro- and micro-plastics and negatively affects critical soil functions, according to a study. The United Nations considers soil plastic contamination an environmental health and food security threat.

A small international team has found that anurans such as frogs and toads will be facing increased risks to their survival in the coming years due to water habitats drying up as a result of global warming.

A team of behavioral ecologists, zoologists and crop protection specialists from Tel Aviv University reports that Oriental hornets have the highest-known tolerance to alcohol in the animal kingdom. In their study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group fed ethanol solutions to hornets.

One of the rarest species of whale in the world has increased slightly in population, encouraging conservationists to call on the federal government and the shipping and fishing industries to do more to bring the giant animals back from the brink of extinction.

The Mediterranean Sea is a paradise. Pristine waters and an incredible coastline spanning multiple continents are renowned the world over. Below those picturesque, and sometimes crowded, waters swims a legendary creature facing a treacherous and uncertain future: the white shark.

Invasive insect species bring a host of health, social, ecological and economic consequences, including crop damage, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, ecosystem disruption, human disease transmission and rising allergy rates.

Anthropogenic nitrogen deposition and climate change can reduce the competitive advantage of nitrogen-fixing plants, leading to reduced diversity of these plants in a community. Surprisingly, changes in temperature and aridity do not contribute to the observed temporal changes in the diversity of nitrogen-fixing plants, as an international research team including Dr. Thilo Heinken from the University of Potsdam found out. The results of the...

A pair of marine mammal scientists at The University of British Columbia, has found that claims that a lack of access to salmon is what is driving the crash in population numbers for southern resident killer whales of the Pacific are wrong.

Giant worms found wriggling under the Pacific seabed have unveiled a thriving ecosystem in a fiercely hostile environment, according to a study published by Nature Communications.

American lobsters along Maine's coast have relocated to new habitats, while the population simultaneously shrunk in abundance and grew older, according to a new study by University of Maine researchers.

An alarming discovery from University of Guelph researchers raises concerns for bumblebee health, survival and reproduction. U of G environmental sciences researchers Drs. Nigel Raine and Sabrina Rondeau have found that bumblebee queens are more likely to hibernate in soil contaminated with pesticides than in clean soil—for reasons they still don't quite understand.

The migration of the monarch butterfly is one of the wonders of the natural world. Each autumn, a new generation of monarch butterflies is born in the northern United States and southern Canada. Hundreds of millions of these butterflies then fly to the mountains of Central Mexico, between 4,000km and 4,800km away. There, they overwinter in forests of the sacred fir Abies religiosa at...

Scientists don't just want their results to be published; they want them to be published in the most influential journal they can find. This focus on a high impact factor is driven by their concerns about promotion and tenure, but it may be overlooking the important role that smaller publications can play in the advancement of their science.

Tracy Rittenhouse, associate professor of natural resources and the environment in UConn's College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR), was doing an experiment to study ranavirus epidemics in wood frogs. When Meghan Parsley, then a Ph.D. student at Washington State University, heard about it, she realized the approach would be ideal to study some questions she had about environmental DNA (eDNA) as well.

Researchers at Durham University, in collaboration with international partners, have developed a robotic system that allows for continuous, long-term observation of honeybee colonies.

Biofilms—slimy communities of bacteria—grow on all sorts of surfaces: from glaciers and hot springs to plant roots, your bathtub and fridge, wounds, and medical devices such as catheters. Most biofilms are composed of multiple bacterial species, but how these species manage to live together is unclear.

In the world of zebra finches, males sing, and females were thought to just listen. But a new study by Daniela Vallentin at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence has overturned this assumption.

Researchers have further advanced understanding of social relationships in female mammals, highlighting the critical role oxytocin plays.

Many plankton journey from the cold, dark depths of our oceans to the surface, only to eventually drift down again into the darkness in a perpetual rhythm. Yet, how single-celled phytoplankton, most of which have no appendages to help them swim, make this pilgrimage has remained a mystery.