We are told the natural world is ‘breaking down’. But forests don’t work like aeroplanes or human hearts ...

Healthy ecosystems depend on more than just having lots of species—they rely on the complex relationships between plants, prey and predators, according to new international research led by the ...

Ecosystem function describes the array of biological, geochemical and physical processes that occur within an ecosystem—such as primary production, nutrient cycling, decomposition and climate ...

Desertification is accelerating under climate change, threatening biodiversity, food security, and human well-being across the Mediterranean Basin, southern Europe, and the Middle East. Water scarcity ...

Many alpine ecosystems are undergoing vegetation degradation because of global change, which is affecting ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. The ecological consequences of alpine pioneer ...

What can fossil records teach scientists about ancient ecosystems and marine environments? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address ...

Halting biodiversity loss is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, and if we want international conservation policies that work, we need to urgently re-evaluate how we think ecosystems work ...

Every day, new areas of rainforests are converted into plantations, drastically changing tropical biodiversity and the way the ecosystem functions. Yet, the current understanding of the consequences ...

Wildlife biologists used a novel technique to trace the movement of carbon through Arctic and boreal forest food webs and found that climate warming resulted in a shift from plant-based food webs to ...

A recent study quantifies the impact of biodiversity loss on ecological functions by tracking energy flows within them. It found that declines in birds and small mammals have led to a significant ...