Latest Biodiversity Stories

Study suggests that plant biodiversity buffers negative climate change effects and drylands desertification An international team of researchers including Dr. Bertrand Boeken of the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev suggest in a new study that plant biodiversity preservation is crucial to buffer negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands. The study titled, "Plant species richness and ecosystem multi-functionality...

In yet another triumph of modern technology, scientists say they’ve been able to use an advanced system of lasers to study the biodiversity and structure of Amazonian rainforests in unprecedented detail. Over three miles above the Peruvian rainforest, a team of scientists crammed themselves into a small research aircraft along with a laser-emitting device known as a Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging). The Lidar was used to bounce laser beams off the lush green canopy below at a rate of...

Biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world. The challenges of conserving the world’s species are perhaps even larger than mitigating the negative effects of global climate change. Dealing with the biodiversity crisis requires political will and needs to be based on a solid scientific knowledge if we are to ensure a safe future for the planet. This is the main conclusion from scientists from University of Copenhagen, after 100 researchers and policy experts from EU countries were...

New medical transportation provider begins operating in the Houston area. Houston, Texas (PRWEB) January 18, 2012 Lifewatch Emergency Medical Services recently began offering round-the-clock ambulance transportation to medical facilities, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, rehabilitation centers and other health care facilities in Houston, Pearland, Friendswood, Alvin, League City, Nassau Bay, Webster, Humble and the surrounding communities. “This new service will enhance the...

The Ecology and Environment Sciences are two of the key categories covered by the Sciences Social network ScienceIndex.com. The users of the website monitor nearly 190 scientific journals publishing in these two disciplines. ScienceIndex.com was established in 1998 to index the very latest news, headlines, references and resources from science journals, books and websites worldwide. The site covers news in all fields of biology, business, chemistry, engineering, geography, health,...

Preserving diverse plant life will help buffer the negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands Preserving diverse plant life will be crucial to buffer the negative effects of climate change and desertification in the world's drylands, according to a new landmark study. The findings of the multi-author study, published January 12 in the journal Science, are based on samples of ecosystems in every continent except Antarctica. They confirm for the first time that...

High-priority sites for biodiversity conservation yield many of the world's ecosystem services, and ensuring that the stewards of such areas were paid by their beneficiaries could substantially alleviate poverty Land areas that are a priority for wildlife conservation provide relatively high levels of ecosystem services such as pollination, water purification, food production, and climate regulation, so safeguarding them is expected to benefit people. Assessing these benefits to...

The first electronically described liverwort species comes from New Zealand The open-access journal PhytoKeys – known for applying cutting edge technologies in publishing and dissemination to accelerate biodiversity research – is pioneering an electronic-only publishing workflow in a series of papers published over the course of the first week of January 2012. As of the 1st of January 2012, extensive new changes took effect to the way plant scientists name new plants, algae, and...

Increase in content partnerships, growing Spanish-language text, conservation content, and images boost Encyclopedia of Life's value to scientists and general public The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL, www.eol.org) continues to expand at a record pace with the addition of new content and partners. At the start of 2012, EOL provides data on nearly half of all described species, with new content in Spanish, rich information about conservation issues from the International Union for the...

Animals and plants could be on a collision course created by climate change, and our current predictions might be underestimating how many will go extinct Predictions of the loss of animal and plant diversity around the world are common under models of future climate change. But a new study shows that because these climate models don't account for species competition and movement, they could grossly underestimate future extinctions. "We have really sophisticated meteorological models...