Conservation Science

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)

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?

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.

Brian Beal, a University of Maine at Machias biologist, has been studying the decline of clam populations in the state and said warm weather, coupled with an extremely successful predator, historically spells disaster for clams. Green crabs, originally from Japan, were first recorded on Long Island, N.Y., in the mid-1860s and weren’t seen in Casco Bay until the early 1900s, Beal said. The green crab populations have been kept in check by severe cold snaps, Beal said, experienced frequently throughout the last century, allowing clams and other shellfish to recover.

Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) announced today that the Institute has endorsed a technical-scientific cooperation agreement on the issue of mercury with México’s major federal environmental agency, the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC). The agreement allows the Maine wildlife research group to conduct scientific research in México in full cooperation with that country’s federal government.