Adaptive radiation, a process in which many new species explode and occupy different ecological niches in a short time, can rapidly promote speciation and enrich species diversity. Genomic analyses have shown that phylogenies ...
Researchers from Zhejiang University, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Northwest University, and Yunnan University, Aarhus University, and BGI-Research have jointly led a series of significant new studies are published in a ...
In a quest to unravel Charles Darwin's enigmatic "abominable mystery," a team of scientists from The University of Western Australia has embarked on a ground-breaking study of flowering plants that thrived approximately 125 ...
Non-avian dinosaurs were probably in decline long before an asteroid smashing into the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago sealed their fate, according to a University of Alberta paleontologist who says the ancient tale ...
Wheat, which includes bread wheat and its relatives, is a staple food crop that feeds about 35% of the world's population. As one of the first ancient crops to appear in the Fertile Crescent, wheat has been cultivated for ...
Madagascar's extinct elephant birds—the largest birds ever to have lived—have captured public interest for hundreds of years. Little is known about them due to large gaps in the skeletal fossil record.
Fish, the most biodiverse vertebrates in the animal kingdom, present evolutionary biologists a conundrum: The greatest species richness is found in the world's tropical waters, yet the fish groups that generate new species ...
Mountaineers who venture high into the Colorado Rockies have likely spotted medium-sized, brown-and-pink birds rummaging around on snow patches for insects and seeds. These high-elevation specialists are rosy finches, a type ...
Four fundamental processes shaping biodiversity should be taken into account to explain why some ecosystems are more sensitive than others to human impacts such as climate change and habitat destruction. The knowledge gained ...
Among domestic mushroom pickers in Germany it goes without saying that many edible mushrooms in our forests are still contaminated with radionuclides as a result of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Less well known is ...
