Ecosystem management is an integrative, adaptive method for planning and implementing interventions in ecological systems to sustain or restore their structure, function, composition, and services over the long term. It emphasizes system-level objectives, such as maintaining biodiversity, ecological integrity, and resilience, rather than optimizing single components or outputs. Methodologically, it combines ecological modeling, long-term monitoring, stakeholder involvement, and scenario-based decision analysis within an adaptive management cycle of hypothesis-driven actions and iterative evaluation. Ecosystem management explicitly incorporates spatial heterogeneity, cross-scale ecological processes, and uncertainty, and often uses tools such as GIS-based landscape analysis, environmental indicators, and decision-support systems to guide management actions and evaluate trade-offs among competing ecological and socio-economic goals.
On a summer day in Michigan, a tiny Poweshiek skipperling butterfly—smaller than a quarter—takes flight over a restored prairie.
Plants & Animals
Aug 14, 2026
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31
Nature is not doing well in Australia. Many unique mammals, birds and insects are struggling. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
Ecology
Aug 9, 2026
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14
New UC Berkeley-led research indicates that continued climate change could severely increase wildfire above natural levels in Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Lassen Volcanic national parks.
Environment
Jul 30, 2026
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11
Biosphere reserves help curb deforestation in the Western Amazon and, taken together, have prevented the loss of more than 7,400 square kilometers (2,900 square miles) of forest over the last two decades compared with similar ...
Environment
Jul 30, 2026
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6
Researchers at the Centre for Ecosystem Management (CEM), together with scientists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Cornell University, Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, ...
Ecology
Jul 29, 2026
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6
As melting glaciers and shifting climates push mountain ecosystems to the brink, an international team of researchers has outlined a radical new approach aimed at strengthening the resilience, inclusivity and sustainability ...
Environment
Jul 27, 2026
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12
Invasive alien species are among the world's leading drivers of species extinction. However, previous global assessments of the geographic distribution of this damage suffered from a systematic "research bias": Because significantly ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 27, 2026
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14
The need for a national deer management strategy to manage the decline of native forests is highlighted in a new research paper published today in the New Zealand Journal of Ecology. Led by Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University ...
Ecology
Jul 27, 2026
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26
Swidden agriculture—often called "slash-and-burn"—has been practiced on every inhabited continent throughout human history, and for decades it has been blamed for the destruction of the world's rainforests. However, a new ...
Environment
Jul 25, 2026
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91
Ecologists have long understood that biodiversity is paramount to ecosystem stability. Until now, however, most ecological research has focused on a single layer of ecological life at a time—for example, plant or animal communities. ...
Ecology
Jul 25, 2026
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16
