Ecosystem resilience is the capacity of an ecological system to absorb disturbances, reorganize, and retain its essential structure, functions, feedbacks, and identity within a particular stability domain. It reflects the system’s ability to maintain key processes such as nutrient cycling, energy flow, and species interactions despite perturbations, including climatic extremes, biological invasions, or anthropogenic impacts. Resilience arises from mechanisms like functional redundancy, response diversity, spatial and temporal heterogeneity, and connectivity among habitat patches. In research, it is quantified through metrics such as recovery rates, persistence of functional groups, thresholds for regime shifts, and the magnitude of disturbance a system can withstand before transitioning to an alternative stable state.
As COVID-19 disrupted rural economies, communities living near protected rainforests faced rising uncertainty about jobs, health and basic needs. A new study in The Lancet Planetary Health shows that when communities were ...
Environment
Jul 21, 2026
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As the flames advanced toward the village of Bédar in Spain's Almería province, the mayor gave a desperate order to ring the church bells to warn residents. It was not enough. The July 9 Los Gallardos fire, which claimed ...
Environment
Jul 20, 2026
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When a record-breaking drought and heat wave swept across China's Yangtze River Basin in 2022, forests across the region faced an extreme test. The event provided a rare opportunity for researchers to test how different forests ...
A study published in Ecography has assessed how climate change may be destabilizing interactions between predators and prey in the wild—specifically, how owl–prey interactions have responded to environmental variability and ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 8, 2026
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Freshwater ecosystems are under growing pressure worldwide, but conservation resources are limited. A framework developed by IIASA researchers and partners can help identify where conservation could prevent biodiversity loss ...
Ecology
Jul 7, 2026
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An alpine ash forest is a sight to behold. Alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) is a tall eucalypt species that grows in the cool, wet mountains of southeastern Australia.
Plants & Animals
Jun 30, 2026
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Grasslands account for roughly 40% of terrestrial ecosystems and are paramount to global food security. Wild grasslands provide food for livestock and habitat for pollinators and act as a carbon sink in the era of climate ...
Ecology
Jun 29, 2026
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A McGill University study suggests that diversifying crops and replacing annual wheat with a perennial grain could help protect soil health as climate change brings more variable rainfall. The research is published in the ...
Ecology
Jun 23, 2026
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People's knee-jerk reaction to seeing death in nature is often not positive. The burn scar left by wildfire on a once-forested hillside, or a ghostly white coral reef, may evoke tragedy and despair. But in nature, most plants ...
Ecology
Jun 11, 2026
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Indonesia is home to the world's largest and most biodiverse coral reef system, spanning more than 32,000 square kilometers across the archipelago. Just like what is happening globally, these reefs are now bearing the brunt ...
Ecology
Jun 8, 2026
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