Phys.org – Ecology

Biological communities are rarely stable. Their composition is constantly changing, depending on the environmental conditions in the respective ecosystems—and sometimes this change is so vast that individual species completely disappear from a community. In order […]

More than 30,000 teeth, bones and other fossils from a 249 million-year-old community of extinct marine reptiles, amphibians, bony fish and sharks have been discovered on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen. These record the […]

Earth’s largest mass extinction occurred about 252 million years ago, wiping out the majority of marine and terrestrial life, disrupting the global carbon cycle for several hundred thousand years, and earning the title “the Great […]

While they didn’t live in a pineapple under the Phosphoria Sea, it turns out a good chunk of the prehistoric Intermountain West was once blanketed in sea sponges.This post was originally published on this site

The deadly decline of Britain’s native oak trees may be driven by an unexpected accomplice: their own smell.This post was originally published on this site

In the world of phylogenetics, there’s team sponge and team comb jelly. Which creature roots the animal tree of life—the simple sponge or the more complex comb jelly—has stirred fierce debate among phylogeneticists, researchers who […]

Fish species living in the deep sea feature a surprisingly large range of body shapes that evolved in different ways and at different rates depending on where the fishes live in the ocean, new research […]

Beaver-created wetlands increase pollinator numbers, boosting biodiversity, according to new research by the University of Stirling.This post was originally published on this site

Florida’s beaches—particularly those in Palm Beach County—are among the world’s most vital nesting grounds for loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta), accounting for 90% of all loggerhead nests in the Southeastern United States. Where a sea […]

A fungal infection solution could help eliminate up to 86% of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, offering a powerful new tool in the global fight against the disease, according to new research.This post was originally published on this […]