Featured
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News |
What will get sick from the slick?
Nature investigates five of the Gulf of Mexico's signature species.
- Melissa Gaskill
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News |
Call me Leviathan melvillei
Sperm whale fossil has the biggest whale bite ever seen.
- Janet Fang
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Letter |
Replacing underperforming protected areas achieves better conservation outcomes
Removing the protected status from poorly performing conservation areas, selling the land and using the money better elsewhere is controversial, but has a simplistic appeal. Here, it is shown that such degazetting can reap significant conservation benefits, even for the well-designed Australian network of protected areas, and even when there is a significant economic cost to transferring protected status to a new area.
- Richard A. Fuller
- , Eve McDonald-Madden
- & Hugh P. Possingham
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Letter |
Negative plant–soil feedback predicts tree-species relative abundance in a tropical forest
One potential mechanism for maintaining biodiversity is negative feedback between a species and its specific enemies, meaning that other species can grow in its vicinity better than further individuals of the species in question. These authors show that in a tropical forest it is the soil biota that is the main cause of this feedback, and that this effect can explain the diversity.
- Scott A. Mangan
- , Stefan A. Schnitzer
- & James D. Bever
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Research Highlights |
Biogeochemistry: Faecal fertilization
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Editorial |
A full accounting
The BP spill should help make the case for bringing ecosystem services into the economy.
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Research Highlights |
Microbiology: Hitching a ride
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News & Views |
Fish in Lévy-flight foraging
Lévy flights are a theoretical construct that has attracted wide interdisciplinary interest. Empirical evidence shows that the principle applies to the foraging of marine predators.
- Gandhimohan M. Viswanathan
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News |
Egyptian kingdoms dated
Radioactive isotopes nail the timeline of Egyptian dynasties.
- Richard Lovett
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Correspondence |
New data system to galvanize Brazil's conservation efforts
- Ana C. M. Malhado
- & Richard J. Ladle
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Correspondence |
Green development credits to foster global biodiversity
- Alexander N. James
- & Francis Vorhies
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Correspondence |
Call for cooperation to contain damage by Chile's salmon farms
- Heike Vester
- & Marc Timme
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News |
UN body will assess ecosystems and biodiversity
Nations agree on way to keep watch on Earth's health.
- Emma Marris
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Research Highlights |
Biology: Sniffer sharks
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Research Highlights |
Ecology: Rise of the sources
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Research Highlights |
Microbial ecology: Sated snakes
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News & Views |
When an infection turns lethal
Losses in biodiversity and the emergence of new infectious diseases are among the greatest threats to life on the planet. The declines in amphibian populations lie at the interface between these issues.
- Andrew R. Blaustein
- & Pieter T. J. Johnson
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News |
Mosquito spray affects bird reproduction
House martin numbers hit by 'environmentally friendly' insect control.
- Natasha Gilbert
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News |
New UN science body to monitor biosphere
'IPCC for biodiversity' approved after long negotiation
- Emma Marris
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News |
Timing is everything for sharks that smell in stereo
Sharks sniff out their prey using the timing of scents, not concentration.
- Janet Fang
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News Feature |
Ecology: Emergency medicine for frogs
With chytrid fungus rapidly spreading around the world, researchers are testing an extreme approach to saving endangered amphibian populations. Naomi Lubick reports from a rescue site.
- Naomi Lubick
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News |
Endangered-porpoise numbers fall to just 250
Time is running out for vanishing vaquitas.
- Rex Dalton
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News |
Crocodiles go with the flow
Surfing currents allows crocodiles to travel long distances.
- Natasha Gilbert
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News |
Evolutionary insights caught on camera
Spying on wild crickets in the field yields secrets of reproductive success.
- Janelle Weaver
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Letter |
Population diversity and the portfolio effect in an exploited species
The value of having a diversity of species within an ecosystem is well appreciated: species-rich communities are thought to produce more stable ecosystem services. But population diversity within a species is important too. Here, the effects of diversity in population and life history in a heavily exploited Alaskan salmon species are quantified. The results show that population diversity increases the resilience of this ecosystem, and hence the value of salmon fisheries.
- Daniel E. Schindler
- , Ray Hilborn
- & Michael S. Webster
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Editorial |
Wanted: an IPCC for biodiversity
An independent, international science panel would coordinate and highlight research on a pressing topic.
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Research Highlights |
Ecology: What's that whale?
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Research Highlights |
Ecology: Mighty termite mounds
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News |
Lazy crows pitch in when it counts
Hard times bring out the best in idle birds.
- Janelle Weaver
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News Feature |
Fisheries: What's the catch?
New England fishermen have mixed feelings about a programme designed to allow overfished species to recover. Mark Schrope reports on how catch shares have scientists fishing for answers.
- Mark Schrope
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Letter |
Ecological interactions are evolutionarily conserved across the entire tree of life
It is expected that closely related organisms are more likely to show similar ecological interactions than less related ones. But this has been tested only for certain types of interaction, and in a restricted set of taxa. Now interaction networks have been constructed for 116 different clades of related organisms, across the entire tree of life, and including all types of interaction. The results reveal significant conservatism across the board, including both specialist and generalist species.
- José M. Gómez
- , Miguel Verdú
- & Francisco Perfectti
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News |
Researchers track path of oil from rig spill
Officials desperately seek answers on where the slick will head.
- Mark Schrope
- & Janet Fang
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Letter |
A Late Cretaceous ceratopsian dinosaur from Europe with Asian affinities
Ceratopsians — horned dinosaurs — were distinctive features of the fauna of the Cretaceous period in East Asia and western North America. There have been hints that they might also have occurred elsewhere, but this has not been definitive, until now. The discovery of a ceratopsian, Ajkaceratops kozmai, from what is now Hungary shows that Late Cretaceous biogeography still has surprises in store.
- Attila Ősi
- , Richard J. Butler
- & David B. Weishampel
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Correspondence |
Changing climate threatens tropical rainforests too
- Kwek Yan Chong
- , Chow Khoon Yeo
- & Alex Thiam Koon Yee
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Research Highlights |
Microbial ecology: Bacterial pest killer
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Research Highlights |
Biodiversity: Counting creatures
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Research Highlights |
Biogeochemistry: Trouble down the river
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Books & Arts |
Sustainability through computing
A book promoting the use of informatics to help us live greener lives could have been enhanced by following interactive design principles, suggests Nick Salafsky.
- Nick Salafsky
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News & Views |
Horned dinosaurs venture abroad
The discovery in Europe of fossils of a small horned dinosaur, a member of a group previously known only from Asia and North America, will prompt a rethink of biogeography at that time in the past.
- Xing Xu
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News |
Fast-breeding mice dominate a warming world
Past climate change led to lower diversity in the small and furry.
- Janet Fang
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Letter |
Small mammal diversity loss in response to late-Pleistocene climatic change
Many large mammals became extinct worldwide at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, around 12,000 years ago. Here, it is shown that smaller mammals, which often provide much more comprehensive fossil records than large mammals, were much less likely to respond to the Pleistocene–Holocene transition by becoming extinct. Instead, diversity and evenness suffered, so that less abundant species became rarer, with more generalist 'weedy' species becoming more common.
- Jessica L. Blois
- , Jenny L. McGuire
- & Elizabeth A. Hadly
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Correspondence |
Biodiversity: linking Singapore's fragmented habitats
- Kwek Yan Chong
- , Alex Thiam Koon Yee
- & Chow Khoon Yeo
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Research Highlights |
Ecology: No farm is an island
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News |
Pacific tuna population may crash at any time
Researchers warn that confidence in stock's health could be misplaced.
- David Cyranoski
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News Feature |
Oceanography: Death and rebirth in the deep
When a submarine volcano erupts, the results can be devastating — and fascinating. Jane Qiu finds new drama in underwater biogeography.
- Jane Qiu
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News |
Pact protects Canadian forests
Huge conservation deal will benefit caribou and maybe climate.
- Christopher Pala
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Research Highlights |
Population genetics: Nautical niches
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