biodiversity

Migratory monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus plexippus) are now considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The species will now be listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species after habitat loss and climate change decimated the population.

A new mine proposed for Queensland, Australia would require 1,023.6 hectares of koala habitat to be cleared for construction. The project would also remove more than 70 hectares of habitat for greater gliders, two species of which were recently listed as endangered earlier this month.

A new survey of 3,331 scientists studying biodiversity across 187 countries has revealed that more species are threatened with extinction than previously thought. As many as 50% of species have been threatened with extinction or driven to extinction since 1500, according to survey results.

Sometimes all it takes is a single photograph to change someone’s mind or inspire them to take action. For Catherine Collins and her husband Douglas Frantz, that was a photo of a yardstick plunged 32 inches into filth below a salmon farm near Port Mouton, Nova Scotia.

Wild bison haven’t been seen in Britain for thousands of years, until this morning, when three of the herbivores — known as “ecosystem engineers” for their ability to naturally impact the landscape in positive ways — set hoof in the countryside near Canterbury, in Kent.

Citizen scientists have helped to discover a fungus previously unknown to science in the soil of the Scottish Highlands.  Scientists analyzed 219 soil samples collected by hiking volunteers from 55 “Munros” — or mountains — in Cairngorms National Park last year and found that hidden in the dirt was a new species of fungus from […]

Humans have been farming for thousands of years, but they’re not the only mammal to tend and harvest their crops. A biology professor and an undergraduate student at the University of Florida have discovered that southeastern pocket gophers promote and defend meandering tunnels of underground roots and collect them for food, according to a University […]

Government scientists in the UK could soon begin tests for giving oral contraceptives for grey squirrels in the country. The hope is to control this invasive species without killing the animals. The current plan is to set up feeding boxes that only the grey squirrels can access, using hazelnut spread containing the contraceptives as bait. […]