Ecosystems
The Secret Life of Nectar: How Colour and Chemistry Shape Plant–Pollinator Relationships
Have you ever wondered what’s inside a flower? It might look delicate and simple, but inside, they are busy running a secret operation.
Ecosystems
Desert cities get powerful tree shade but miss out on the cooling effect that works elsewhere
Las Vegas trees create 17°C shade oases but can’t cool city air like temperate climates due to desert adaptations that limit transpiration.
Ecosystems
Wet Gets Wetter, Dry Gets Drier in the Amazon Rainforest
As seasons get more extreme in the Amazon, weather patterns will shift across South America, threatening both indigenous communities and economic stability.
Ecosystems
How Golf Courses Are Helping to Save the Primrose
Well-managed golf courses are helping save endangered primrose flowers, allowing them grow in number and stay genetically healthy as farms become less friendly to wildflowers.
Ecosystems
The hidden complexity of pollinator networks in gardens
What might appear to be one network of plants and pollinators may in fact be many.
Ecosystems
Is it time to kill the “Mass Extinction” concept?
A story popular in New Scientist at the moment questions what we know of the deep past, and it has a plant twist.
Ecosystems
The search for gold risks losing treasure
Amazon gold mining leaves forests unable to heal for centuries, because miners carelessly turn the landscape into a giant sieve.
Ecosystems
How Soil and Climate Help Maintain a Flower Colour Polymorphism
Why do flowers of the same species come in different colours? Researchers have discovered that one answer to this phenomenon lies in soil conditions and adaptations to environmental stress.
Close Encounters
Plants Might Get Explosive When It Comes to Ensuring Their Paternity
Like many animals, some plants can actively hamper their rivals’ attempts to reproduce in previously unimagined ways, according to a recent study published in The American Naturalist.
Close Encounters
Lured by Litter? An Australian Tree that Fools Its Pollinator by Mimicking Dead Leaves
A rainforest flower has evolved to look and smell like a pile of dead leaves, convincing enough to trick a beetle into pollinating it.
Ecosystems
How Is Human Mismanagement Reshaping the Biodiversity of American Forests?
Human-introduced trees are silently reshaping US forests, eliminating rare native species.
Ecosystems
Could Climate Change and Pollinator Loss Turn Chocolate Back into an Expensive Delicacy?
A new study outlines some of the biggest threats that environmental change poses to the worldwide production of cacao, the plant source for chocolate, and some ideas to overcome them in the near future.