Conservation Science

As climate change encroaches, animals and plants around the globe are having their habitats pulled out from under them. At the same time, human development has made islands out of even our largest nature reserves, stranding the biodiversity that lives within them. The Spine of the Continent introduces readers to the most ambitious conservation effort ever undertaken: to create linked protected areas extending from the Yukon to Mexico, the entire length of North America. This movement is the brainchild of Michael Soule, the founder of conservation biology and the peer of E.O.

With unspoiled ocean views and easy access to beaches, West Cliff Drive is prime real estate in Santa Cruz. Josh Adams, an ecologist with the United States Geological Survey in Santa Cruz, says those coastal cliffs are ideal spots for seabirds too. A thriving colony of Brandt’s cormorants lives at Natural Bridges. Adams says this colony is unique because few native seabirds nest within cities along the California coast. “Most of the seabirds in our system nest on offshore rocks and islands that are predator free,” he says.

To keep tabs on natural schedules in California, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have launched the California Phenology Project. Led by professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Susan Mazer, graduate student Brian Haggerty, and postdoctoral fellow Elizabeth Mathews, the project is observing plants at eight UC Natural Reserves and seven national parks, totaling more than 100 monitoring sites.

Cougar biologist Mark Elbroch spent more than a year in South America's Patagonia region tracking down pumas and recording what they hunt and eat, riding on a horse for up to 21 hours at a time. In the course of his research, Elbroch noticed something odd: Patagonian pumas kill about 50 percent more animals than their North American counterparts and spend less time feeding on their hard-earned meals. But why?

Are single-family ranches harming biological diversity in the Negev? According to a new study, they may well be doing so in the long run. Read more (requires subscription)

The National Marine Fisheries Service on Friday proposed listing 66 coral species in the Pacific and Caribbean oceans as endangered or threatened. Corals provide habitat that support fisheries, generate jobs through recreation and tourism, and protect coastlines from erosion, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Jane Lubchenco. Yet, scientific research indicates climate change and human activities are putting corals at risk, she said.

For most of the past several millennia, Flevoland, a province which sits more or less at the center of the Netherlands, lay at the bottom of an inlet of the North Sea. A massive drainage project in the nineteen-fifties allowed Flevoland to emerge out of the muck of the former seafloor. Now, Flevoland is home to the Oostvaardersplassen, a wilderness that was also constructed, Genesis-like, from the mud.

A globe-trotting tale that marks the very first time original Atlantic reporting is being published as an ebook, Battle at the End of Eden takes readers inside the fight to preserve the most delicate places on Earth.

Ships travel around the world using shipping lanes. Whales can be in the same areas, raising the potential for collisions between the two, or shipstrikes. 2008 Fellow Leslie Abramson works with the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in San Francisco to coordinate a stakeholder process focused on reducing the risk of shipstrike on endangered whales off the coast of California.