Coral reefs cover less than 1 percent of the Earth’s surface yet feed and shelter a significant amount of marine life, including some 4,000 species of fish. However, these vital ecosystems face an increasingly bleak future.
All posts by Melissa Gaskill
Many of us have seen images taken from space of the Earth at night. The planet sparkles, dazzling light from cities connected to each other by bright tendrils. It looks eerily beautiful and somehow festive. But this beauty actually is light pollution and it has, pun intended, a dark side.
Those who explore the waters of the Amazon basin occasionally hear a forceful snort, the sound that a pink river dolphin or boto makes when it surfaces to exhale. Visitors sometimes catch a glimpse of a pinkish, rounded forehead or small dorsal fin just above the surface. That’s likely all they’ll get, though. Not only are these freshwater dolphins relatively shy, but their numbers have also drastically declined in recent years.
The Amazon basin, almost the size of the continental United States, represents half of the world’s tropical rainforest and 12 percent of its total forest cover.
American Spring LIVE: Episode 1 - Birth and Rebirth
To protect many species of wild animals, we need to learn more about them. Often, that means having to tag, collar or otherwise track them. It’s a game that scientists take seriously.
American Spring LIVE: Episode 1 - Birth and Rebirth
Citizen science programs mobilize people from all walks of life to contribute to scientific research. These projects tap the power of the public, with more people working in more places and for longer than researchers possibly could on their own.
Florida panthers need space and in a state of busy roads and sprawling development, finding that space grows harder every day.
When someone shot the last wolf in Yellowstone National Park in 1926, they probably gave no thought to the effect that action might have on trees. But the absence of apex predators –those animals at the top of the food chain, such as lions, sharks and wolves – causes changes that cascade throughout an ecosystem, in this case, right down to its plants.