Biogeography is the scientific study of the spatial and temporal patterns of biodiversity, examining how and why the distributions of species, populations, communities, and ecosystems vary across geographical areas and through evolutionary time. It integrates principles from ecology, evolution, geology, and climatology to analyze processes such as dispersal, speciation, extinction, vicariance, and range shifts. Biogeography encompasses subfields including historical biogeography, which reconstructs past distributions using phylogenetic and paleontological data, and ecological biogeography, which investigates how current environmental gradients, habitat structure, and biotic interactions shape present-day distributional patterns and biodiversity gradients, such as latitudinal diversity clines and island faunas.
Researchers from the University of Rhode Island are contributing to an international effort to document life on Indonesia's remote tropical seamounts—underwater mountains rising from the ocean floor that can host diverse ...
Ecology
May 22, 2026
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Governments around the world conserve plants and animals in part by setting aside land. Whether as wilderness reserves or as resource management zones that allow industrial activities such as logging, 17.4% of the planet's ...
Ecology
May 19, 2026
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A scientific mission was set to kick off the search Monday for rodents that may be hantavirus carriers after an outbreak on a cruise ship departed this region at the southern tip of Argentina on April 1.
Ecology
May 18, 2026
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How does an ecosystem distribute its energy across body sizes? A new study suggests the answer depends on where you are—and how much humans have altered the landscape. Analyzing communities of birds and mammals worldwide, ...
Plants & Animals
May 14, 2026
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To effectively protect biodiversity in an era of climate change, ecologists first have to know where animal and plant species are located and then be able to predict what habitats will be available to them in the future. ...
Ecology
May 14, 2026
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If you travel around Australia, you will find an incredible diversity of lizards. The three-toed snake-tooth skink (Saiphos reticulatus), for example, is a peculiarly long and stumpy-legged reptile that burrows in rainforest ...
Evolution
May 13, 2026
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Describing new species can take decades. But scientists are working to identify new ways to speed up our understanding of this hidden biodiversity. By looking at the genetic data of thousands of beetle species, our researchers ...
Ecology
May 13, 2026
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When scientists think about how plants will respond to climate change, they often look north. As temperatures rise, many species are expected to shift their ranges toward cooler regions with a loss of populations in warmer ...
Evolution
May 11, 2026
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For more than a decade, conservation biologist Steve Boyes searched for "ghost elephants"—nocturnal giants rumored to roam a remote, high-altitude wetland in eastern Angola. When a motion-sensor camera finally captured their ...
Plants & Animals
May 9, 2026
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Small samples of DNA can reveal hotspots and trade routes in the illegal wildlife trade, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Sean Heighton and Philippe Gaubert of the University of Toulouse ...
Plants & Animals
May 7, 2026
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