Ecology

Juan Fernández fur seals are so ineffectively comprehended that they were thought of as terminated for almost 100 years before a remainder populace that had figured out how to sidestep the ages of trackers was rediscovered during the 1960s. Their isolation on a named archipelago 600 kilometers off the Chilean coast is largely responsible for their mysterious nature. These far-flung islands are in a protected national park, the last place you'd think animals would be exposed to high pollution levels. However, the samples I collected and analyzed with coworkers reveal something else. Our latest review, distributed in Illustrious Society Open

Imagine the view from the west coast of South Africa during the Last Ice Age (LGM) 20,000 years ago. hundreds of millions. Habitat for seabirds and penguins. Imagine now that between 15,000 and 7,000 years ago, the sea level rose by 100 meters, gradually covering these large islands and leaving only small hills and hills above the water. Over the past 22,000 years, this habitat has increased ten times the amount of habitat suitable for African penguins, causing their populations to decline. This is a palaeohistoric snapshot of the African penguin's geographic range, created by scientists from the Department of

A surprising number of coastal marine invertebrate species have settled on the high seas and are now able to survive and reproduce in the open ocean, significantly altering the composition of the floating community. A group of researchers led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and the University of Hawai'i at Mnoa published this finding today in Nature Ecology and Evolution. The analysts tracked down seaside species, addressing assorted scientific classifications and life history characteristics, in the eastern North Pacific Subtropical Gyre on more than 70% of the plastic garbage they analyzed. Besides, the trash conveyed more beachfront species

Up until recently, it was believed that grazers, or fish that eat algae and other debris, kept reefs healthy as opposed to corallivores, which weaken the structure of the reef. But researchers have found that, perhaps as a result of the coral pathogens they may contain, grazer feces cause significant lesions on coral. Contrarily, the feces of corallivores may serve as a source of advantageous microbes that support coral growth. According to Dr. Carsten Grupstra of Rice University, lead author of the study published in Frontiers in Marine Science, "Corallivorous fish are generally regarded as harmful because they bite the

An opinion piece advocating for convergent research that combines the disciplines of behavioral ecology and biogeography has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Oklahoma. The article argues that in order to more quickly address the issues of climate change and biodiversity loss, convergent research that combines these two disciplines is necessary. The crisis of biodiversity loss has received less attention than the crisis of climate change, which dominates headlines. The authors of the article claim that "finding solutions that prevent large-scale extinction requires addressing

According to a recent study by scientists from Stanford University and colleagues, published April 6 in Nature Sustainability, the traditional conservation paradigm of "leaving nature alone" can be unreal and unhelpful, especially in a time of increasingly rapid ecosystem change. The study makes the case that a greater understanding of the advantages of good land stewardship is essential for maintaining the health of ecosystems both inside and outside of conserved landscape parcels. The Santa Cruz Mountains, a region that is home to a wealth of biodiversity and has experienced significant human disturbance, were used by the researchers to illustrate their

They are the spines. The spiny pollen from plants in the sunflower family (Asteraceae), which is led by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, both reduces infection of a common bee parasite by 81–94% and significantly boosts the production of queen bumble bees, according to two new papers. The study, which was published in Functional Ecology and Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, provides much-needed food for thought in relation to one of the most challenging issues facing ecologists and biologists today: how to stop the massive die-off of pollinators. Around the world, insect pollinators provide ecosystem

The first efficient bacterial probiotic for treating and preventing stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), a puzzling ailment that has decimated Florida's coral reefs since 2014 and is swiftly spreading throughout the Caribbean, has been found by researchers with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The probiotic therapy, which is detailed in a paper published today in Communications Biology, offers an alternative to the use of the broad-spectrum antibiotic amoxicillin, which has so far been the only proven treatment for the illness but has the potential to encourage the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. At least 20 species of so-called

A combination of environmental elements, including temperature, moisture, and nutrient content, determines the habitat—the ecological niche—of a microorganism. However, it is challenging to determine exactly how much each of these factors will contribute. By identifying the microorganisms that coexist, a German-Dutch research team has redefined microbial niches. Led by Prof. Bas E. Dutilh from the University of Jena and Utrecht University, the researchers used this "social niche breadth" approach to create the first "Map of the Microverse" in the most recent issue of the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Microorganisms colonize nearly every place on earth, sometimes in harsh conditions,