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Survival prospects for the honeybee (Apis mellifera) look increasingly promising as entomologists and beekeepers have reported a dramatic increase in the population numbers of these essential insects in North America and Europe. Honeybees, which are…

Forests absorb and store carbon. If this ability is hampered, then levels of atmospheric carbon will increase and global temperatures will rise, leading to potentially drastic climatic changes. In particular, deforestation (the permanent elimination…

Mangrove forests are taxonomically diverse assemblages of trees and shrubs that form the dominant plant communities in tidal, saline wetlands along sheltered tropical and subtropical coasts. They have several ecological and physical functions that…

A new species of orangutan has been identified in the Batang Toru forest ecosystem in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. Genetic and morphological evidence, as well as behavioral data, have confirmed that the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) is…

In an attempt to quantify the amount of plastics ever produced and what has happened to them, researchers produced the first global analysis using data collected from plastic industry sources. As reported in Science Advances (July 2017), 8300…

Research into the depleted state of the Great Barrier Reef, one of the great wonders of the natural world, provides a vivid case study of the extreme harm that the warming climate and the affliction called coral bleaching cause globally. In March…

Although the survival of the snow leopard (Panthera uncia; formerly, Uncia uncia), also known as the ounce, is precarious, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has assigned an upgraded…

Surface water from streams across the United States contain a diverse mixture of synthetic organic pollutants, according to a joint U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study reported in the journal…

Wildfires are known to emit large amounts of gaseous and particulate pollutants. In an effort to identify and quantify these pollutants, researchers took their instruments to the skies where they sampled and analyzed smoke plumes from aircraft…

The dance language of honeybees (Apis mellifera) is a unique form of animal behavior and communication that was discovered by the zoologist Karl von Frisch (1886–1982) in the 1920s, which he continued to study through the 1960s and for which he was…