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Mosquito larvae grow faster if they're exposed to particular bacteria, according to a new study that could help global health programs.

A German-American research team has discovered two highly unusual bacterial species in the tissue of two deep-sea corals from the Gulf of Mexico. These previously unknown coral symbionts have an extremely reduced genome and lack the ability to obtain energy from carbohydrates, the team reports in an article published in the journal Nature Communications.

A multi-institutional team of environmental scientists and physical limnologists has found that there may be a scientific explanation for Jesus' "miraculous catch of fish"—one that does not involve miracles. In their paper published in the journal Water Resources Research, the group describes their study of natural fish die-offs in Lake Kinneret, which is believed to be the Biblical Sea of Galilee mentioned in the...

If carbon emissions are curbed and local stressors are addressed, coral reefs have the potential to persist and adapt over time. That's according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB).

Increased land management by Aboriginal people in southeastern Australia around 6,000 years ago cut forest shrub cover in half, according to our new study published in Science of fossil pollen trapped in ancient mud.

Researchers at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) are collaborating with colleagues from Frankfurt/Main, Oxford and Würzburg to investigate how the complex, cooperative behavior of honeybees (Apis mellifera) is genetically programmed so that it can be passed on to subsequent generations.

Echolocating bats have been found to possess an acoustic cognitive map of their home range, enabling them to navigate over kilometer-scale distances using echolocation alone.

Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) aims to collect millions to billions of high-quality, highly contextualized vocalizations in order to understand how sperm whales communicate. But finding the whales and knowing where they will surface to capture the data is challenging—making it difficult to attach listening devices and collect visual information.

A team of computer scientists, ecologists and statisticians at Stony Brook University, working with a colleague from the U.S. Geological Survey, has found that it is possible to use AI applications to find images captured by ecotourists for use in studying remote animal species.

Marine animals like jellyfish, corals and sea anemones often live with algae inside their cells in a symbiotic relationship. The animals give the algae nutrients and a place to live; in return, algae give the animals some of the food they make from sunlight via photosynthesis.

A commercialized New Age ritual is causing not only "unwanted energies" to go up in smoke, but also foreign wild plants. A study by Utrecht University researchers Isabela Pombo Geertsma and Anastasia Stefanaki, alongside colleagues from Wageningen UR and Naturalis Biodiversity Center, reveals that dried plant bundles sold in the Netherlands for ritual burning often include plants from distant regions.

The development of primate brains is shaped by various inputs. However, these inputs differ between independent breeders, such as great apes, and cooperative breeders, such as the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) and humans. In these species, group members other than the parents contribute substantially to raising the infants from birth onwards.

Large herbivores like bison or elk have continuously lived in the Yellowstone National Park region for about 2,300 years, according to a new analysis of chemicals preserved in lake sediments. John Wendt of Oklahoma State University, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 30, 2024.

In the past, African giant pouched rats have learned to detect explosives and the tuberculosis-causing pathogen. Now, a team of researchers have trained these rats to pick up the scent of pangolin scales, elephant ivory, rhino horn, and African blackwood. These animals and plants are listed as threatened and at high danger of extinction.

Anecdotes abound of wildlife behaving "drunk" after eating fermented fruits, but despite this, nonhuman consumption of ethanol has been assumed to be rare and accidental. Ecologists challenge this assumption in a review published October 30 in Trends in Ecology & Evolution. They argue that since ethanol is naturally present in nearly every ecosystem, it is likely consumed on a regular basis by most fruit-...

Jake Lewis, an entomologist in the Environmental Science and Informatics Section at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), is fascinated by weevils, a diverse group of beetles that includes many species with elephant trunk-like mouthparts (called a rostrum). Weevils provide various ecosystem services such as pollination and decomposition, but some species are serious pests known to decimate crop fields and timber forests.

Climate change is altering species distributions across the world, and this is particularly marked in the Arctic where warming is occurring most rapidly.

Erebus Bay, Antarctica, is home to the southernmost population of the world's southernmost living mammal—the Weddell seal. These seals may look like couch potatoes when they are resting on the ice, but Weddell seals go to great lengths to make a living in the harshest and most rapidly changing environments.

A study led by the University of Bremen suggests that on algae-dominated coral reefs, it is not the algae but the corals themselves that may contribute to the growth of harmful bacteria. This discovery suggests that a disturbance in the natural composition of the water jeopardizes marine ecosystems.

Invasive species in Florida like Nile monitors and Argentine black-and-white tegus pose a growing threat to the Sunshine State's environment, economy and public safety. South Florida's warm climate, disturbed habitats and bustling pet trade have made it a hotspot for these non-native, cryptic reptiles. However, finding these elusive creatures has always been a challenge—until now.

Montana State University and Universidad de los Andes researchers have detected a significant imbalance in the distribution of tetrapod reference genomes. They find a disproportionate concentration of studies in high-latitude regions compared to where global biodiversity is most concentrated.

There is power in numbers, or so the saying goes. But in the ocean, scientists are finding that fish that group together don't necessarily survive together. In some cases, the more fish there are, the larger a target they make for predators.

Red deer may become less sociable as they grow old to reduce the risk of picking up diseases, while older house sparrows seem to have fewer social interactions as their peers die off, according to new research showing that humans are not the only animals to change their social behavior as they age.

A new study by researchers at the UT sheds light on historical changes in the amount of water humanity consumes to grow the world's main crops. The analysis demonstrates that despite increasing crop water productivity, the total amount of water we consume keeps growing, which may exacerbate the already existing myriad of related environmental and socio-economic issues.