Wetlands, as critical "ecological kidneys" of the earth, perform irreplaceable functions such as water purification, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity ...

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

Human-driven changes to landscapes worldwide are 'thinning out' the ecological services supplied by wild birds, eroding the ...

Land-use intensification can increase provisioning ecosystem services, such as food and timber production, but it also drives changes in ecosystem functioning and biodiversity loss, which may ...

Conservation programs are often too focused on a single charismatic species, Hai-Tao Shi at Hainan Normal University in China ...

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 ...

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 ...

Ecosystem engineers physically modify their environment, thereby altering habitats for other organisms. Increasingly, “engineers” are recognized as an important focus for conservation and ecological ...

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 ...

image: Microorganisms affect the flow of energy and matter within ecosystems, but they are also subject to infection by viruses. Scientists do not fully understand how viral infections will alter ...