eDNA found Ecuador's Jambato frog—but only in a minority of water samples
At the critically endangered frog's only known locality, wet-season eDNA detections show promise for low-density monitoring while also exposing substantial nondetection risk.
Archive
Ecology, evidence and perspective.
Forest carbon can recover on a similar trajectory while the ecosystem underneath takes a different path
A subalpine forest chronosequence found similar total above-ground carbon recovery in secondary and planted forests, but the mycorrhizal, structural and soil pathways behind that recovery differed.
Lamprey viromes found two divergent coronaviruses—but detection is not yet a disease diagnosis
Metatranscriptomic work in New Zealand and Tasmania expands the known fish-virus landscape while keeping the cause of lamprey reddening syndrome unresolved.
Fixed farm-scheme dates can miss the birds they are supposed to protect
Five decades of UK nesting records show lapwing and oystercatcher breeding windows shift by species and latitude enough to outlast standard exclusion dates.
Multiple global-change pressures do not add up neatly—and can reverse expected effects on grassland stability
A 13-year factorial experiment shows CO₂, nitrogen, warming and reduced rainfall interact in strongly non-additive, time-dependent ways.
For forest pollinators, a mosaic of fire histories may matter more than one “optimal” burn schedule
A southeastern U.S. study found bees, butterflies and hover flies responded differently to fire history, roads and forest structure—arguing for heterogeneity rather than one-size-fits-all disturbance.
In the heart of the Amazon, public-square tree palettes look surprisingly un-Amazonian
A survey of 35 Manaus squares found exotic species dominated urban plantings, including multiple taxa with invasive potential near native forest remnants.
Dryland inorganic carbon may be less geologically “inert” near the surface than carbon inventories often imply
Radiocarbon across 42 Eurasian dryland sites found a measurable modern-carbon imprint in topsoil carbonates; aridity relationships were clearest in Chinese sites, and depth decline was tested at nine Chinese sites.
Warmer host conditions can select for more virulent parasites over just ten passages
A short experimental-evolution study found temperature left both phenotypic and genomic signatures on a bacterial parasite—but this remains a laboratory warning signal, not a field forecast.
Recovered tree cover did not bring periodical cicadas back
In Iowa, present-day cicada populations were better predicted by 1930 forest cover than by today’s habitat, and a relocation of more than 20,000 adults failed.
The world’s longest-running broad-scale wildlife survey is being redesigned around bias, precision and cost
USGS, Canadian and U.S. wildlife agencies are testing how to modernize the Eastern Breeding Waterfowl Survey without weakening the population evidence behind harvest decisions.
Fire hotspots and biodiversity hotspots overlap enough in the Zagros to change where monitoring should concentrate
A 2000–2023 remote-sensing analysis layers recurrent wildfire clusters with modeled vertebrate richness to identify conservation priority zones.
Wetland area and bird richness can miss functional differences that matter for conservation planning
A Yellow Sea–Bohai analysis uses waterbird traits to show ecosystem-service potential can diverge even among sites with similar headline biodiversity metrics.
Mangrove carbon did not increase in one simple line with stand age
Across six Bangladeshi islands, vegetation and whole-ecosystem carbon kept building while soil organic carbon peaked at an intermediate plantation age.
Protected areas can reduce modeled livestock–wild ungulate competition even when overlap hotspots spill beyond their boundaries
Qinghai–Tibet modeling finds extensive shared range, highlighting both the value and spatial limits of protected-area design in pastoral landscapes.
Carnivore coexistence in southern Ethiopia looks partly like a husbandry problem, not only a wildlife-attitude problem
A seven-village survey links conservation perceptions to lived depredation risk and points toward guarding and livestock-management capacity as part of the coexistence equation.
In a data-scarce Iranian wetland complex, water withdrawals outweighed projected rainfall change in modeled drying risk
A system-dynamics framework turns ecological water thresholds into decision targets—and suggests allocation choices could still materially change habitat outcomes.
Aerial monitoring shows possums are hitting roughly half of vulnerable trees in a rare New Zealand mountain forest
New canopy-dieback mapping in Mid Canterbury is being used to target a spring pest-control operation before further forest decline.
Mangroves and malaria move in opposite directions depending on what “more mangrove” means
Across 27 African countries, greater mangrove extent correlated with lower malaria prevalence while greener vegetation correlated with higher prevalence—an explicitly observational, scale-sensitive result.
Drying rivers can lose local diversity while becoming more different from one another
A 49-network analysis in southeastern France shows why freshwater biodiversity responses change with spatial scale and land-use context.
Pacific conservation leaders leave Nouméa with 16 collective priorities—and an implementation test
The Môo Mâ Awé Declaration and new regional evidence products put community leadership, restoration and Pacific knowledge into a shared 2030 conservation agenda.
Fifteen years of “agriwilding” produced a surprisingly rich insect community inside an intensive farm landscape
A small Belgian perennial polyculture supported far more Lepidoptera than conventional cropland and, in this case, diversity comparable to nearby nature-management areas.
Colorado River eDNA produced an early warning for zebra mussels before managers confirmed the animals themselves
USGS detected zebra-mussel DNA upstream of Canyonlands National Park, giving agencies time to intensify sampling and prevention while establishment remains unconfirmed.
The Pantanal is showing signs of a structural shift toward larger, longer-season fires
Four decades of fire and hydroclimate data suggest the world’s largest wetland is losing some of the flood–fire coupling that historically constrained extreme burning.