environment

The broken-wing display, in which birds fake being wounded to protect their nests from predators, is found across the avian phylogenetic tree, a study finds.

The key to averting cataclysmic events, such as pandemics, climate change, and mass extinction of species, lies partly in what’s on our plates.

Polluted air impedes the trees’ ability to read one another’s signals, a study finds.

Mahi-mahi were more likely to be eaten and less likely to spawn after being exposed to sublethal concentrations of oil, raising concerns about the risks oceanic drilling pose to life in the ocean.

A new modeling technique aims to help scientists and policymakers detect declines in genetic diversity based on habitat loss.

A study suggests that pathogens affecting other species can indirectly harm human health.

Five major El Niño events per century could lead to fewer fishes that thrive in cold water and more terrestrial birds in eastern coastal ecosystems.

Oil on human skin reacts with ozone to produce highly reactive radicals that can generate toxic airborne chemicals in indoor spaces.

Ancient stashes of animal bones, tools, and other artifacts are often dismissed as archaic garbage heaps, but the deposits provide glimpses of the cultural practices and environmental conditions of past Indigenous settlements.

Though it’s poetic to say that ants were grieving the bee at a funeral, the reality is a bit more prosaic.

Frogs invest in cognitive capacity to avoid predators—up until there are too many hungry snakes around for the evolutionary strategy to pay off.

After years of work, conservationists have successfully eliminated two invasive rat species from the Tetiaroa Atoll in French Polynesia.

Threatened and endangered species were among the dead, likely poisoned overnight by a chlorination system used to decontaminate the animals’ tank water.

Meet the team trying to restore mollusk populations with the help of underwater speakers.

A strange layer in the fossil record contains evidence that fern populations exploded following the mass extinction that ended the Cretaceous period. Scientists want to know why.

Lizards born to parents that experienced persistent heat had shortened telomeres, a genetic weathering that typically happens with age but can also be exacerbated by stress.

Of the pathogens known to have infected humans, more than half may cause more widespread disease as a result of rising temperatures, precipitation changes, or other climate-related factors, a study finds.

The compounds responsible for the earthy smell of recent rain are produced by a wide variety of bacteria and fungi. Recent research sheds light on why microbes bother.

A study suggests that several species of brown algae may have independently evolved to express both sexes simultaneously, and it’s likely that female algae evolved male traits—not the other way around.

Lovelock’s environmental research improved humanity’s understanding of pollutants, but he’s best known for his hypothesis that Earth behaves like a self-regulating organism, which changed how scientists view the planet.