As the summer sea ice melts in the Arctic, polar bears struggling to hunt seals are increasingly turning to sea-birds for food. New scientific research suggests that this change in the polar bear diet could severely reduce sea ducks populations and deprive Arctic peoples of a major source of food and livelihood.
Human land-use is a primary cause of biodiversity loss. A recent study shows that human changes to ecosystems has pushed global biodiversity loss beyond safe limits, which could reduce nature’s resilience.
Increasing intensity of human land-use makes ecological communities progressively more similar to one another, leading to an overall loss of diversity. Ecological metrics used to quantify diversity loss could provide helpful conservation benchmarks.
Analysis of global forest cover reveals that over 70 percent of remaining forests are within 1 kilometer of non-forest edge. Synthesis of long-term studies show that this will result in pervasive loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Logging concessions and plantations for fiber species were the biggest contributors to forest loss in Indonesia from 2000-2010, but also comprise the country's largest existing carbon stocks.
Overhunting animal consumers of seeds increases extinction risk in tropical trees, and could change structure and ecological dynamics of tropical forests.
Species are going extinct 1,000 times faster than at any point in Earth's history, and even with protected areas, biodiversity preservation remains sub-optimal due to knowledge gaps and low representation of ecological habitats.
Across the world, animals are consistently imperiled by human land-use, but the magnitude of impact varies between species based on their innate features.
Miniscule fungi and diminutive insects that eat up seeds and seedlings of trees may hold the key to understanding the mindboggling diversity of tropical rainforests.
