Protected areas, as a research topic, encompass geographically defined spaces that are formally designated and managed to achieve specific conservation objectives, typically the long-term maintenance of biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and associated ecosystem services. Scientific inquiry focuses on their design (e.g., size, shape, connectivity), governance regimes, management effectiveness, and socio-ecological outcomes, including impacts on species persistence, genetic diversity, habitat integrity, and local communities. Research also examines zoning, threat mitigation, monitoring frameworks, and the integration of protected areas into broader landscape and seascape planning, as well as their role in meeting international conservation targets and informing evidence-based environmental policy.
Britain's landscape is highly fragmented by roads, with researchers from Cardiff University finding that more than 70% of the UK's roadless areas are smaller than 1 km2. The researchers say that more than 60% of roadless ...
Ecology
Feb 18, 2026
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141
New research shows that maintaining and adopting proposed marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean could almost double the protection of genetic hotspots from 28% to about 54%. These actions would stave off an ...
Ecology
Feb 18, 2026
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12
A camera-trap survey conducted throughout 2025 has revealed the bewildering breadth of biodiversity hidden within the Annamite Mountains, a largely unexplored forest haven stretching for 1,100 kilometers through Laos and ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 14, 2026
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27
Cape Town, in South Africa, is famous for its dramatic mountains and coastline, but its greatest treasure lies in the plants that carpet its slopes and valleys. Table Mountain National Park and its surrounds are home to 2,785 ...
Ecology
Feb 14, 2026
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37
National parks are public conservation assets, created to protect biodiversity and provide affordable access to nature for all. But, new research published in npjBiodiversity highlights a growing global issue: According to ...
Environment
Feb 12, 2026
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16
Harbor porpoises "buzz" less when boats and ships are nearby—suggesting a drop in feeding and socializing, new research shows. The paper, published in the journal Marine Mammal Science, is titled "Seasonal and diurnal patterns ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 9, 2026
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17
"Dirty" or "extremely dirty": these are the classifications of 46% of the world's aquatic environments. This conclusion comes from a study that compiled and systematized data from 6,049 records of waste contamination in aquatic ...
Environment
Feb 6, 2026
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69
Fences intended to protect cattle from catching diseases from wildlife and other livestock in southern Africa are in disrepair, restrict wild animal migrations and likely intensify human-elephant conflict—but a plan to remove ...
Ecology
Feb 5, 2026
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372
Millions of tires, old washing machines, barges, warships, covering the ocean floor with thousands of square kilometers of concrete—even giant, concrete spheres full of holes: these are all things used to build artificial ...
Ecology
Feb 3, 2026
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11
After the tragic death of Canadian backpacker Piper James on K'gari (Fraser Island) on January 19, a coroner found the 19-year-old had been bitten by dingoes while she was still alive, but the most likely cause of death was ...
Ecology
Jan 29, 2026
0
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