Biodiversity, as a biological phenomenon, denotes the variability and complexity of life across genes, species, populations, communities, and ecosystems, including their functional traits and phylogenetic relationships. It emerges from evolutionary processes such as mutation, selection, gene flow, and drift, and is structured by ecological interactions, environmental gradients, and spatiotemporal dynamics. Biodiversity influences and reflects ecosystem functioning, stability, and resilience through mechanisms like complementarity, redundancy, and trophic interactions. It is quantitatively characterized using metrics of richness, evenness, turnover, and functional or phylogenetic diversity, and its patterns are central to understanding biogeography, ecosystem processes, and responses to environmental change.
Imagine a prairie. How many plant species do you see? Maybe you're picturing yellow coneflowers, some little bluestem, perhaps a few asters. But plant ecologists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign say these ecosystems ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 17, 2025
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Biodiversity is critical to humanity's sustainable future, but global species extinction is accelerating due to environmental changes and human activities. The Yarlung Tsangpo River, which originates in the Himalayas, flows ...
Ecology
Jul 17, 2025
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A study published in People and Nature finds that both sight and sound influence perception of biodiversity, and participants were slightly more accurate when assessing forest biodiversity through sound alone than through ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 8, 2025
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Villages, often separated from larger towns and cities, consist of clusters of households and a few public buildings. Despite their long history, the biodiversity of European villages has been understudied compared to urban ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 4, 2025
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A new study published in the journal Soil Ecology Letters, shows the importance of old termite mounds as habitats for a wide range of insects and other invertebrates in the Bornean tropical rainforest. The research team includes ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 27, 2025
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Despite decades of ocean exploration, humans still lack basic answers to one of the most fundamental ecological questions: where is marine life found, and why?
Ecology
Jun 23, 2025
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Designating areas as protected spaces for wildlife is a common strategy for preserving biodiversity, but heavy human development around those areas may largely counteract the benefit of those protections.
Plants & Animals
Jun 19, 2025
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Nature is fundamental to human life and well-being: it enables food production, regulates the climate, maintains the water and carbon cycles, and directly contributes to health. More than half of the global economy depends, ...
Environment
May 23, 2025
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Could farmers get money for protecting birds or plants? That's the hope of the European Union, which is seeking to monetize biodiversity by creating a market for "nature credits".
Environment
May 5, 2025
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The European Union's Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 aims to halt biodiversity loss and restore ecosystems, but what does this mean for Europe's wood supply? In a new study, researchers examine how different modes of implementing ...
Environment
Apr 5, 2025
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