Featured
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Research Briefing |
‘Ghost roads’ could be the biggest direct threat to tropical forests
By using volunteers to map roads in forests across Borneo, Sumatra and New Guinea, an innovative study shows that existing maps of the Asia-Pacific region are rife with errors. It also reveals that unmapped roads are extremely common — up to seven times more abundant than mapped ones. Such ‘ghost roads’ are promoting illegal logging, mining, wildlife poaching and deforestation in some of the world’s biologically richest ecosystems.
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Article |
Ligand cross-feeding resolves bacterial vitamin B12 auxotrophies
Two species of auxotrophic marine bacteria are shown to share precursors to synthesize the essential cofactor vitamin B12, and such ligand cross-feeding may be a common phenomenon in the ocean and other ecosystems.
- Gerrit Wienhausen
- , Cristina Moraru
- & Meinhard Simon
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Article |
A meta-analysis on global change drivers and the risk of infectious disease
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, managing ecosystem health, and preventing biological invasions and biodiversity loss could help to reduce the burden of plant, animal and human diseases, especially when coupled with improvements to social and economic determinants of health.
- Michael B. Mahon
- , Alexandra Sack
- & Jason R. Rohr
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Correspondence |
Finding millennia-old ‘monumental’ corals could unlock secrets of climate resilience
- Simone Montano
- , Federica Siena
- & Giovanni Strona
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Correspondence |
Countering extreme wildfires with prescribed burning can be counterproductive
- David Lindenmayer
- & Philip Zylstra
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Research Briefing |
Changing rainforest to plantations shifts tropical food webs
A study provides insights into how energy flows in the food webs that connect soil- and canopy-dwelling organisms in tropical ecosystems with high biodiversity. When rainforest is converted to plantations, food webs are simplified and restructured, leading to profound changes in tropical-ecosystem functioning.
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Correspondence |
Zoos should focus on animal welfare before claiming to champion conservation
- Donald Broom
- , Hsiao Mei Yeh
- & Shawn Peng
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Research Highlight |
Not just truffles: dogs can sniff out surpassingly rare native fungus
Daisy, a member of a breed used to find fungal delicacies, detected a critically endangered Australian fungus faster than a trained human could.
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News |
Epic blazes threaten Arctic permafrost. Can firefighters save it?
Some scientists argue that it’s time to rethink the blanket policy of letting blazes burn themselves out in northern wildernesses.
- Jeff Tollefson
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Career Feature |
Want to make a difference? Try working at an environmental non-profit organization
Moving to non-profit work requires researchers to shift their mindset to focus on applied science for policymaking and conservation practice.
- Natasha Gilbert
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News |
Hello puffins, goodbye belugas: changing Arctic fjord hints at our climate future
Stunning images show an ecosystem’s upheaval as it warms at an alarming pace.
- Freda Kreier
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News |
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is ‘transforming’ because of repeated coral bleaching
The coral reef is experiencing its worst mass bleaching event on record — and warming waters brought on by climate change are to blame.
- Bianca Nogrady
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News & Views |
Surprise hybrid origins of a butterfly species
Mating between different species has often been considered an evolutionary dead end, but a study in longwing butterflies suggests that such hybridization could underlie the origins of a new species.
- Megan E. Frayer
- & Jenn M. Coughlan
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Article
| Open AccessHybrid speciation driven by multilocus introgression of ecological traits
Genomic studies of Heliconius butterflies provide evidence that Heliconius elevatus is a hybrid species, and that its speciation was driven by introgression of traits from Heliconius melpomene into the other parent, an ancestor of Heliconius pardalinus.
- Neil Rosser
- , Fernando Seixas
- & Kanchon K. Dasmahapatra
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Article |
Biogeographic response of marine plankton to Cenozoic environmental changes
Analysis of a global dataset reveals spatiotemporal patterns of marine plankton and their biogeographical responses during climatic and environmental changes across the Cenozoic era.
- Anshuman Swain
- , Adam Woodhouse
- & Christopher M. Lowery
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Article
| Open AccessEnvironmental drivers of increased ecosystem respiration in a warming tundra
Datasets from in situ warming experiments across 28 arctic and alpine tundra sites covering a span of less than 1 year up to 25 years show the importance of local soil conditions and warming-induced changes therein for future climatic impacts on ecosystem respiration.
- S. L. Maes
- , J. Dietrich
- & E. Dorrepaal
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News & Views |
Wildlife boost in African forests certified for sustainable logging
Is there a conservation benefit if tropical forests that are affected by logging gain certification from the Forest Stewardship Council? An analysis of the biodiversity outcomes in such tropical forests provides answers.
- Julia E. Fa
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Article
| Open AccessFSC-certified forest management benefits large mammals compared to non-FSC
Camera-trap images of 55 mammal species in 14 logging concessions in western equatorial Africa reveal greater animal encounter rates in FSC-certified than in non-certified forests, especially for large mammals and species of high conservation priority.
- Joeri A. Zwerts
- , E. H. M. Sterck
- & Marijke van Kuijk
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Article
| Open AccessGhost roads and the destruction of Asia-Pacific tropical forests
An effort to map roads in the Asia-Pacific region finds that there are 3.0–6.6 times more roads than other sources suggest, and that unmapped ‘ghost roads’ are a major contributor to tropical forest loss.
- Jayden E. Engert
- , Mason J. Campbell
- & William F. Laurance
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Where I Work |
Digging in: last chance to save a native forest
Dario Sandrini hikes, plants and digs to save a threatened and diminishing ecosystem.
- James Mitchell Crow
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Book Review |
Survival of the nicest: have we got evolution the wrong way round?
How humans, animals and even single-celled organisms cooperate to survive suggests there’s more to life than just competition, argues a cheering study of evolutionary biology.
- Jonathan R. Goodman
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News |
Brazil budget cuts could leave science labs without power and water
The Lula administration is trying to reverse lawmakers’ reductions, which are hitting scientists in the Amazon especially hard.
- Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade
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Article |
Fossils document evolutionary changes of jaw joint to mammalian middle ear
A new morganucodontan-like species from the Jurassic in China shows evidence of a loss of load-bearing function in the articular–quadrate jaw joint, which probably had a role in the evolution of the mammalian middle ear.
- Fangyuan Mao
- , Chi Zhang
- & Jin Meng
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Article |
Jurassic shuotheriids show earliest dental diversification of mammaliaforms
A newly described fossil mammaliaform from the Jurassic period of China shows that the shuotheriids are allied to the docodonts, and provides details on the processes of tooth evolution in early mammals.
- Fangyuan Mao
- , Zhiyu Li
- & Jin Meng
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News & Views |
Why hand-operated front brakes were set to be the future of motoring
The complexity of fitting brakes to all four wheels of a car and the simplicity of John Maynard Smith’s ecological models, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
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News & Views |
Climate change predicted to exacerbate declines in bee populations
What effects will climate change have on insect communities? Analyses of data collected over decades robustly document consequences specific to bee populations, and this evidence might aid future conservation efforts.
- Nicole E. Miller-Struttmann
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Article
| Open AccessRevealing uncertainty in the status of biodiversity change
This study presents an approach to deal with spatial, temporal and phylogenetic non-independence in large-scale analyses of biodiversity change, improving trend estimation and inference across scales.
- T. F. Johnson
- , A. P. Beckerman
- & R. P. Freckleton
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Article |
Heat and desiccation tolerances predict bee abundance under climate change
A 16-year dataset of abundance patterns of a diverse assemblage of bees in New Mexico, USA predicts declines for many bee species and indicates that drought-tolerant taxa will prevail in a warming and drying climate.
- Melanie R. Kazenel
- , Karen W. Wright
- & Jennifer A. Rudgers
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Article
| Open AccessClimate velocities and species tracking in global mountain regions
An analysis of the rate at which isotherms are shifting in mountain regions worldwide identifies 17 key regions with particularly high vertical isotherm shift velocities, and provides insight into how these shifts affect species ranges.
- Wei-Ping Chan
- , Jonathan Lenoir
- & Sheng-Feng Shen
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Comment |
How a tree-hugging protest transformed Indian environmentalism
Fifty years ago, a group of women from the villages of the Western Himalayas sparked Chipko, a green movement that remains relevant in the age of climate change.
- Seema Mundoli
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Editorial |
Deep-sea mining plans should not be rushed
Why are companies and governments determined to start commercial-scale mining for rare metals, when so little is known about its wider impacts?
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Obituary |
Estella Bergere Leopold (1927–2024), passionate environmentalist who traced changing ecosystems
The trailblazing palaeobotanist investigated how climate change affected Earth in the past — and firmly believed science should be used in its defence now.
- Cathy Whitlock
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News Feature |
The ‘Mother Tree’ idea is everywhere — but how much of it is real?
A popular theory about how trees cooperate has enchanted the public and raised the profile of forest conservation. But some ecologists think its scientific basis has been oversold.
- Aisling Irwin
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News |
Ditching ‘Anthropocene’: why ecologists say the term still matters
Beyond stratigraphic definitions, the name has broader significance for understanding humans’ place on Earth.
- David Adam
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Nature Podcast |
Killer whales have menopause. Now scientists think they know why
Data suggest menopause evolved to enable older female whales to help younger generations survive, and how researchers made a cellular map of the developing human heart.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Article
| Open AccessAnoxygenic phototroph of the Chloroflexota uses a type I reaction centre
Cultivation of a new anoxygenic phototrophic bacterium from Boreal Shield lake water—representing a transition form in the evolution of photosynthesis—offers insights into how the major modes of phototrophy diversified.
- J. M. Tsuji
- , N. A. Shaw
- & J. D. Neufeld
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Article |
Drought triggers and sustains overnight fires in North America
By examining the hourly diurnal cycle of 23,557 fires in North America during 2017–2020, 1,095 overnight burning events were identified, mostly associated with extreme fires and driven by long-term drought conditions.
- Kaiwei Luo
- , Xianli Wang
- & Mike Flannigan
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News |
Indigenous Australian fire-stick farming began at least 11,000 years ago
Analysis of a sediment core dating back 150,000 years showed that fire patterns in Australia changed with the rise of Indigenous people’s use of fire.
- Bianca Nogrady
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: Model uncertainty obscures major driver of soil carbon
- Feng Tao
- , Benjamin Z. Houlton
- & Yiqi Luo
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Article
| Open AccessBumblebees socially learn behaviour too complex to innovate alone
Bumblebees can learn how to open a two-step puzzle box by observing another trained bee, indicating that these insects can use social learning to acquire a behaviour too complex to otherwise be learnt through individual trial and error.
- Alice D. Bridges
- , Amanda Royka
- & Lars Chittka
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Technology Feature |
Five tips for digitizing handwritten data
Need to digitize field notes or historical documents? Researchers share their best practices.
- Alla Katsnelson
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Obituary |
Christophe Boesch (1951–2024), primatologist and chimpanzee champion
Zoologist whose understanding of chimpanzee behaviours has helped to assure their survival.
- Kathelijne Koops
- & Richard Wrangham
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Article
| Open AccessLatitudinal patterns in stabilizing density dependence of forest communities
An analysis of tree survival data from forest sites worldwide shows that in the tropics, rare tree species experience stronger stabilizing density dependence than common species, wheras no correlation of stabilizing density dependence and abundance exists in the temperate zone.
- Lisa Hülsmann
- , Ryan A. Chisholm
- & Florian Hartig
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Article
| Open AccessMutualisms weaken the latitudinal diversity gradient among oceanic islands
The effect of the latitudinal diversity gradient on plants on oceanic islands is weakened by classical abiotic physical drivers of island biogeography and, to a greater extent, by mutualism with other species.
- Camille S. Delavaux
- , Thomas W. Crowther
- & Evan M. Gora
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Correspondence |
Train young scientists in taxonomy to help solve the biodiversity crisis
- Dasheng Liu
- , Julian R. Thompson
- & Henglun Shen
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Nature Podcast |
Audio long read: Chimpanzees are dying from our colds — these scientists are trying to save them
Endangered apes are increasingly being put at risk by human diseases.
- Rachel Nuwer
- & Benjamin Thompson
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Nature Podcast |
How whales sing without drowning, an anatomical mystery solved
Baleen whales sing using a modified larynx, but this leaves them them unable to escape human noise.
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News |
Why citizen scientists are gathering DNA from hundreds of lakes — on the same day
Massive environmental DNA project will take a record-setting snapshot of biodiversity worldwide.
- Lydia Larsen
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Editorial |
It’s time for countries to honour their million-dollar biodiversity pledges
Promises to safeguard biodiversity need to be translated into money in the bank.
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