How farms could help defend the Earth's own microbiome

Action must be taken to conserve, restore and manage the diversity of microbes that live in soil environments to prevent their extinction, according to a Perspective article published in Nature Microbiology. The paper emphasizes ...

High plant diversity is often found in the smallest of areas

It might sound weird, but it's true: the steppes of Eastern Europe are home to a similar number of plant species as the regions of the Amazon rainforest. However, this is only apparent when species are counted in small sampling ...

Vanilla cultivation on fallow land promotes biodiversity

How can biodiversity be preserved while securing the economic livelihood of smallholder farmers growing vanilla in Madagascar? There is a way, according to a study by the Universities of Göttingen, Marburg and Hohenheim. ...

Soil microbes return after replanting local native plants

Robust long-term ecosystem restoration relies not just on replanting native vegetation but on the recovery of underlying soil biodiversity—yet this area has received little attention and is poorly understood, Flinders University ...

Discovering new plant and fungi species

There is so much we still don't know about native species in Australia and New Zealand. Best estimates suggest that we have yet to discover and name some 70% of the life living around us.

Satellite monitoring of biodiversity moves within reach

Global biodiversity assessments require the collection of data on changes in plant biodiversity on an ongoing basis. Researchers from the universities of Zurich and Montréal have now shown that plant communities can be reliably ...

page 4 from 18