Community ecology is the subfield of ecology that investigates the structure, composition, and dynamics of co-occurring species within a defined area, focusing on how biotic interactions and abiotic factors shape patterns of biodiversity. It examines processes such as competition, predation, mutualism, facilitation, and trophic interactions, and analyzes emergent properties including species richness, evenness, food web architecture, and functional diversity. Community ecologists use observational studies, experiments, and quantitative models to understand mechanisms of coexistence, succession, community assembly, disturbance responses, and the maintenance of ecosystem functioning and stability across spatial and temporal scales.
Species numbers alone do not fully capture how ecosystems are changing. In a global study, scientists analyzed long-term data from nearly 15,000 marine and freshwater fish communities. They found that fish food webs have ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 19, 2026
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69
Up to 30% of bird diversity hotspots, places where large numbers of different bird species occur, in the western United States face threats from high-severity wildfires in the future that could eliminate critical forest habitats, ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 18, 2026
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19
An ecosystem is not a still life. Even where everything looks stable—a woodland, a lake, the soil—the internal "bookkeeping" keeps changing: how many individuals belong to which species, and for how long. Some populations ...
Evolution
Feb 18, 2026
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15
Most people think of microbes in simple terms: Some make you sick, while others help keep you healthy. But microbes' influence stretches far beyond human bodies. These astonishingly complex organisms regulate the health of ...
Ecology
Feb 13, 2026
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52
A new study sheds light on how farmer-led collaboration can help create the conditions to address biodiversity loss in agricultural landscapes. The research looks at "farmer clusters"—groups of farmers working together across ...
Ecology
Feb 10, 2026
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15
Many ecologists hypothesize that, as global warming accelerates, change in nature must speed up. They assume that as temperatures rise and climatic zones shift, species will face local extinction and colonize new habitats ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 9, 2026
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1476
A research team led by Prof. Zhu Yongguan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) at the CAS Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, has identified the mechanisms by which sponge city construction significantly ...
Ecology
Feb 3, 2026
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13
A new study shows that interactions between wolves and cougars in Yellowstone National Park are driven by wolves stealing prey killed by cougars and that shifts in cougar diets to smaller prey help them avoid wolf encounters. ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 26, 2026
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850
A new study published in Ecology Letters has uncovered the mechanisms underlying plant community assembly and biodiversity maintenance, revealing that plant-associated microorganisms play a pivotal yet underappreciated role ...
Ecology
Jan 5, 2026
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12
Imagine a healthy forest, home to a variety of species: Birds are flitting between tree branches, salamanders are sliding through leaf litter, and wolves are tracking the scent of deer through the understory. Each of these ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 18, 2025
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