Ecology articles within Nature

Featured

  • Opinion |

    New Orleans's recovery five years on from Katrina is a harbinger of how climate change will drive a thicker wedge between the haves and the have-nots, says John Mutter.

    • John Mutter

  • Letter |

    Many ecological systems have chaotic or near-chaotic dynamics. In such cases, it has proved difficult to test whether data fit particular models that might explain the dynamics, because the noise in the data make statistical comparison with the model impossible. This author has devised a statistical method for making such inferences, based on extracting phase-insensitive summary statistics from the raw data and comparing with data simulated using the model.

    • Simon N. Wood

  • News |

    Supercomputer time will help ornithologists make ecological sense of millions of records of bird sightings.

    • Emma Marris

  • News |

    Study shows that stripping mountains for coal has a much greater impact than urban growth.

    • Natasha Gilbert

  • News & Views |

    In tropical rainforests, tree seedlings growing close to their parent are more likely to die. This mortality, caused by soil organisms, helps to explain the coexistence and relative abundance of species.

    • Owen T. Lewis

  • Careers and Recruitment |

    Marine biologists are developing an appreciation for conservation, a change that is creating new jobs. Emma Marris reports.

    • Emma Marris

  • News |

    New species are continually emerging from the ocean depths, comprehensive record of biodiversity reveals.

    • Melissa Gaskill

  • Article |

    Using historical data combined with more recent satellite observations, these authors show that global phytoplankton biomass has been declining during the past century.

    • Daniel G. Boyce
    • , Marlon R. Lewis
    •  & Boris Worm

  • News & Views |

    Phytoplankton biomass is a crucial measure of the health of ocean ecosystems. An impressive synthesis of the relevant data, stretching back to more than 100 years ago, provides a connection with climate change.

    • David A. Siegel
    •  & Bryan A. Franz

  • Opinion |

    To feed the world without further damaging the planet, Jeffrey Sachs and 24 food-system experts call for a global data collection and dissemination network to track the myriad impacts of different farming practices.

    • Jeffrey Sachs
    • , Roseline Remans
    •  & Pedro A. Sanchez

  • Letter |

    Climate change can affect the phenology, population dynamics and morphology of species, but it is difficult to study all these factors and their interactions at once. Using long-term data for individual yellow-bellied marmots, these authors show that climate change has increased the length of the marmot growing season, leading to a gradual increase in individual size. It has simultaneously increased the fitness of large individuals, leading to a rapid increase in population size.

    • Arpat Ozgul
    • , Dylan Z. Childs
    •  & Tim Coulson

  • News & Views |

    Demonstrations of coupled phenotypic and demographic responses to climate change are rare. But they are much needed in formulating predictions of the effects of climate change on natural populations.

    • Marcel E. Visser

  • News & Views |

    Nature reserves and protected areas enjoy sacred status in conservation — which translates into a 'do not touch' attitude. But selling off some of the less worthy of them would pay conservation dividends.

    • Peter Kareiva

  • Books & Arts |

    Samir Okasha is intrigued by a proposed universal law of biology: that complexity inevitably increases in the absence of other evolutionary forces.

    • Samir Okasha

  • Opinion |

    The value of ecosystems is largely invisible to markets. Ricardo Bayon and Michael Jenkins call on governments to drive regulatory and voluntary economic instruments that put a price on the services that nature provides.

    • Ricardo Bayon
    •  & Michael Jenkins

  • Opinion |

    Researchers and regulators need to keep up with the changing risks, and share information, says Arne Jernelöv, as tanker spills decline and pipeline leaks and blowouts become more of a concern.

    • Arne Jernelöv

  • Opinion |

    Fifty years after setting foot in Gombe, Jane Goodall calls for urgent action to save our closest living relatives from extinction in the wild. Conservationists and local people must collaborate, she and Lilian Pintea conclude.

    • Jane Goodall
    •  & Lilian Pintea

  • News Feature |

    A once-threatened population of African fish is now providing a view of evolution in action. Laura Spinney asks what Lake Victoria cichlids have revealed about speciation.

    • Laura Spinney

  • Letter |

    It remains uncertain whether added nitrogen enhances total plant productivity in response to CO2-fertilisation in natural ecosystems. Here the authors show that nitrogen addition initially enhances the CO2-stimulation of plant productivity but also promotes the encroachment of plant species that respond less strongly to elevated CO2 concentrations. Overall, the observed shift in the plant community ultimately suppresses the CO2-stimulation of plant productivity.

    • J. Adam Langley
    •  & J. Patrick Megonigal

  • Letter |

    Modern sperm whales have relatively small teeth and feed by suction, but the discovery of large teeth in the fossil record suggests that raptorial sperm whales once existed. Here the authors report the discovery of the teeth and jaws of a fossil raptorial sperm whale from the Middle Miocene of Peru, almost as large as a modern sperm whale but with a three-metre head and jaws full of teeth, some 36cm long.

    • Olivier Lambert
    • , Giovanni Bianucci
    •  & Jelle Reumer

  • News & Views |

    Organic farming supports higher biodiversity. Research involving the Colorado potato beetle shows that this increased diversity can deliver a better ecosystem service in the form of more effective pest control.

    • Lindsay A. Turnbull
    •  & Andy Hector

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