Featured
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Correspondence |
Ecology: correct the digital data divide
- Sarab Sethi
- , Robert M. Ewers
- & Rohini Balakrishnan
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Research Briefing |
Tree diversity enhances soil carbon and nitrogen sequestration in natural forests
Biodiversity experiments show that a high diversity of plants increases the accumulation of soil carbon and nitrogen, but whether such conclusions hold in natural ecosystems is debated. An analysis of Canada’s National Forest Inventory provides strong evidence that the build-up of soil carbon and nitrogen on a decadal timescale increased with improved tree diversity in natural forest ecosystems.
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Article
| Open AccessBasin-wide variation in tree hydraulic safety margins predicts the carbon balance of Amazon forests
A pan-Amazon study of forests shows large variations in drought tolerance traits and finds that forests in regions of pronounced climate change are losing biomass and may be operating beyond their hydraulic limits.
- Julia Valentim Tavares
- , Rafael S. Oliveira
- & David R. Galbraith
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Article |
Tree diversity increases decadal forest soil carbon and nitrogen accrual
Analysis of data from the Canadian National Forest Inventory database suggests that greater tree diversity in natural forests is associated with increases in soil carbon and nitrogen stocks.
- Xinli Chen
- , Anthony R. Taylor
- & Scott X. Chang
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Where I Work |
I explore my people’s sacred space to protect biodiversity
Zoleka Filander leads research in South African waters to shield vulnerable marine life and honour her Indigenous community.
- James Mitchell Crow
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News & Views |
An evolutionary route to warning coloration
Bright colours that signal toxicity can deter predators, but how such colours initially evolve without first endangering conspicuous organisms is a contentious issue. Analysis of amphibians offers an answer to the puzzle.
- Tim Caro
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News |
Genetic map of Tasmanian devil cancers hints at their future evolution
Most detailed analysis yet pinpoints the contagious tumours’ origins.
- Gemma Conroy
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Editorial |
Is Africa’s Great Green Wall project withering?
The plan to re-green a 7,000-kilometre swathe south of the Sahara is at risk of losing its pan-African vision and ambition.
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News |
Why Earth’s giant kelp forests are worth $500 billion a year
Analysis estimates that kelp forests are at least three times more valuable for food and the planet than previously thought.
- Gemma Conroy
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News Feature |
The Arctic after dark: a secret world of hidden life
An international team braved the far north in January to unlock secrets of how marine organisms tell day from night during the polar winter.
- Randall Hyman
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Research Highlight |
Fierce fires lessen a forest’s appetite for carbon
Extreme blazes mean that woods in California take longer to return to their pre-fire rate of carbon uptake.
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Research Briefing |
Greenhouse-gas effects of land-use change in Indonesian peatlands
Land-use changes alter the exchange of greenhouse gases, but the magnitudes of these effects remain uncertain. Estimates of net greenhouse-gas emissions associated with different uses of tropical peatland in Indonesia — including intact forest and Acacia tree plantations — could inform science-based practices for managing peatlands as nature-based mitigators of climate change.
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Career Column |
Dear scientists: stop calling America the ‘New World’
It’s new to you — but not to me or anyone else who grew up here, writes Fernanda Adame.
- Fernanda Adame
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Editorial |
European backsliding on electric vehicles is bad news for the climate
Attempts to put a brake on the transition to electrification and allow ‘climate neutral’ fuels after 2035 ignore the science — what’s needed is policy clarity now.
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Correspondence |
West Africa: make cocoa production truly sustainable
- Thomas Addoah
- , Joss Lyons-White
- & Rachael Garrett
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Where I Work |
Guardian of Ecuador’s diverse — and vanishing — frog species
Conservation biologist Andrea Terán-Valdez aims to protect endangered frogs in Ecuador by breeding populations, cataloguing new species and fighting industrial development.
- Nikki Forrester
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News & Views |
Blue foods brought to the table to improve fish-policy decisions
What are the benefits of a fish-rich diet, not only for nutrition and health but also for the environment, economies and sustainability? A new framework offers a way to assess the benefits and trade-offs on national and global scales.
- Nanna Roos
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Research Briefing |
Shallow-reef species around Australia are declining with warming seas
Since 2008, population densities of shallow-reef fishes, invertebrates and seaweeds around Australia have generally decreased near the northern limits of species’ ranges, and increased near their southern limits. Endemic invertebrates and seaweeds that prefer cold waters showed the steepest declines, and are prevented by deep-ocean barriers from moving south as temperatures rise.
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Article |
Continent-wide declines in shallow reef life over a decade of ocean warming
A systematic census at 1,636 sites around Australia from 2008 to 2021 finds that more than 30% of shallow invertebrate species in cool latitudes exhibit a high extinction risk due to declining populations and oceanic barriers, but tropical coral species remain relatively stable.
- Graham J. Edgar
- , Rick D. Stuart-Smith
- & Amanda E. Bates
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Editorial |
UN high seas treaty is a landmark – but science needs to fill the gaps
The agreement is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for researchers and funders to use every idea and instrument available to preserve the health of the seas.
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Article |
The carbon sink of secondary and degraded humid tropical forests
Analysis of satellite-based data on recovering degraded and secondary forests in three tropical moist forest regions quantifies the amount of aboveground carbon accumulated, which counterbalanced one quarter of carbon emissions from old-growth forest loss between 1984 and 2018.
- Viola H. A. Heinrich
- , Christelle Vancutsem
- & Luiz E. O. C. Aragão
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Correspondence |
When legislation to protect wildlife becomes a problem
- Richard Shine
- , Martin J. Whiting
- & Chris Jolly
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Career Column |
Breaking the bias: how to deliver gender equity in conservation
Sexist stereotyping abounds in conservation science, says Robyn James. Here’s how to change it.
- Robyn James
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Correspondence |
Brazil: plan for zero vegetation loss in the Cerrado
- Ricardo B. Machado
- , Ludmilla M. S. Aguiar
- & José Maria C. Silva
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Technology Feature |
Astrobiologists train an AI to find life on Mars
An artificial-intelligence model trialled in Chile’s Atacama Desert could one day detect signs of life on other planets.
- Amanda Heidt
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Research Highlight |
Big bats fly towards extinction with hunters in pursuit
Human hunt at least 19% of bat species worldwide — especially flying foxes, which can have wingspans of 1.5 metres.
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News |
Pablo Escobar’s ‘cocaine hippos’ spark conservation row
Researchers worry Colombian environment ministry will side with animal-rights activists rather than curb the invasive animals’ spread.
- Emiliano Rodríguez Mega
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News & Views |
Carbon stocks of billions of individual African dryland trees estimated
An inventory of nearly 10 billion individual trees has been compiled for the African drylands, estimating biomass and carbon stocks. The data will aid dryland restoration projects and assessments of the land carbon budget.
- Jules Bayala
- & Meine van Noordwijk
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Research Briefing |
Observed reductions in rainfall due to tropical deforestation
Tropical deforestation affects local and regional precipitation, but the effects are uncertain and have not been determined using observations. Satellite data sets were used to show reductions in precipitation over areas of tropical forest loss, with stronger reductions seen as the deforested area expands.
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Research Briefing |
Coastal algal blooms have intensified over the past 20 years
Global spatial and temporal patterns of coastal phytoplankton blooms were characterized using daily satellite imaging between 2003 and 2020. These blooms were identified on the coast of 126 of the 153 ocean-bordering countries examined. The extent and frequency of blooms have increased globally over the past two decades.
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Article
| Open AccessCoastal phytoplankton blooms expand and intensify in the 21st century
Satellite observations reveal global increases in the extent and frequency of phytoplankton blooms between 2003 and 2020 and provide insights into the relationship between blooms, ocean circulation and sea surface temperature.
- Yanhui Dai
- , Shangbo Yang
- & Lian Feng
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Article
| Open AccessTropical deforestation causes large reductions in observed precipitation
A pan-tropical analysis using satellite, station-based and reanalysis datasets shows that deforestation causes reduced precipitation, and demonstrates that the effect increases with spatial scale.
- C. Smith
- , J. C. A. Baker
- & D. V. Spracklen
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Article
| Open AccessSub-continental-scale carbon stocks of individual trees in African drylands
A database and viewer is described, resulting from the assessment of the carbon stock of over 9 billion individual trees in semi-arid sub-Saharan Africa using field data, machine learning, satellite data and high-performance computing.
- Compton Tucker
- , Martin Brandt
- & Rasmus Fensholt
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Article |
Phototrophy by antenna-containing rhodopsin pumps in aquatic environments
Light energy transfer from abundant hydroxylated carotenoids to the retinal moiety of widespread light-driven proton pumps is detected.
- Ariel Chazan
- , Ishita Das
- & Oded Béjà
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News |
Big dino, little dino: how T. rex’s relatives changed their size
‘Impressive’ fossil analysis reveals why some dinosaurs were massive but their cousins were tiny.
- Dyani Lewis
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Article |
Diagnosing destabilization risk in global land carbon sinks
Increasing variability of net biome production over recent decades may be due to climate change and points to destabilization of the carbon–climate system.
- Marcos Fernández-Martínez
- , Josep Peñuelas
- & Ivan A. Janssens
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Correspondence |
Legally protect marine food web’s lower echelons
- Johanna Sophie Buerkert
- , Federica Catonini
- & Gregor Luetzenburg
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Article |
Effects of moisture and density-dependent interactions on tropical tree diversity
Moist soil strengthens density-dependent mortality with long-lasting effects on species diversity of tropical trees.
- Edwin Lebrija-Trejos
- , Andrés Hernández
- & S. Joseph Wright
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Article |
Origination of the modern-style diversity gradient 15 million years ago
Quantification of planktonic fossils from the past 40 million years shows that the present-day diversity gradient arose only 15 million years ago as the climate started to cool.
- Isabel S. Fenton
- , Tracy Aze
- & Erin E. Saupe
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Article |
Late Cenozoic cooling restructured global marine plankton communities
Analysis of Triton, a high-resolution dataset documenting the macroperforate planktonic foraminifera fossil record, reveals a global climate-linked equatorward shift of ecological and morphological community equitability over the past 8 million years.
- Adam Woodhouse
- , Anshuman Swain
- & Christopher M. Lowery
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News & Views |
Rainfall affects interactions between plant neighbours
Neighbouring plants affect the performance both of their own species and that of other species. How these interactions vary with rainfall might explain patterns of plant diversity and predict responses to global environmental change.
- Meghna Krishnadas
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News & Views |
Tropical biodiversity linked to polar climate
The rise in species diversity towards the tropics is a striking and unexplained global phenomenon. Ocean microfossil evidence suggests that this pattern arose as a result of ancient climate cooling and polar-climate dynamics.
- Moriaki Yasuhara
- & Curtis A. Deutsch
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News Explainer |
What it would take to bring back the dodo
An audacious plan to ‘de-extinct’ dodos depends on huge leaps in biotechnology and resurrecting a lost habitat.
- Ewen Callaway
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Where I Work |
This baby turtle surprised scientists by swimming against the current
Satellite transmitters help Cristina Miranda to understand the movements and habitats of endangered hawksbill sea turtles in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
- Virginia Gewin
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Career Column |
Fieldwork: how to gain access to research participants
It took experience and emotional investment to improve my ability to get close to research participants. Here’s how I did it, says Anna Lena Bercht.
- Anna Lena Bercht
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Where I Work |
Mapping the Amazon’s fish under threat
Ichthyologist Lucia Rapp Py-Daniel preserves and catalogues the fish of Amazonian waters as their numbers fall because of industrial development.
- Patricia Maia Noronha
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Nature Video |
Drowning in seaweed: How to stop invasive Sargassum
Around the world countries are battling the unassuming brown seaweed taking over their beaches.
- Zan Barberton
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Article
| Open AccessTriassic stem caecilian supports dissorophoid origin of living amphibians
Analysis of fossils of the oldest known caecilian provide insights into the origin and morphological and functional evolution of caecilians.
- Ben T. Kligman
- , Bryan M. Gee
- & Michelle R. Stocker
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