http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/ecology http://io9.com/tag/ecology

What if all the cats on Earth vanished one day, beamed back to their home planet or taken up in the kitty rapture? We'd certainly miss their funny LOLCat antics and the way they sleep on our keyboards, but what greater disasters lie in store for a feline-free planet Earth? One scientist takes a look at the catpocalypse, and it's not pretty. More »
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It seems counterintuitive, but new research suggests that it is actually the world's biggest trees that suffer the most from climate change and forest fragmentation. More »
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Every few years, beautiful two-foot-tall snowy owls migrate south in impressive numbers from the Arctic, in what bird watchers call an "irruption." But this year, the regal-looking birds (which belong to the same species as Harry Potter's Hedwig) are showing up farther south and in greater numbers than ever before. More »
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The United States has long been recognized as one of the most scientifically productive countries on Earth. But when you're discussing progress, where you've been is not nearly as important as More »
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In the last several hundred years, human activity has shifted large quantities of the world's carbon from long-term storage (i.e. carbon bound up in rocks, fossil fuels, and forests) into forms of short-term storage such as croplands and pastures, which tend to store less carbon for shorter periods of time. More »
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We've previously looked at musical fungus and Austrian gardening aficionados who turned their crops into euphony. More »
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Just when it seemed like we knew all the dangers of climate change, science has to go and throw us this curveball. Warmer temperatures make lizards' brains develop differently. Last thing we need is some newly super-intelligent lizards judging us. More »
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Chalk another one up to camera traps! You're looking at a close-up of one of the only known photos of a living Myanmar snub-nosed monkey — a bizarre species of primate that is so snub-nosed, it reportedly sneezes when it rains. More »
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Hydrothermal vents are epicenters to some of the most extreme geochemical processes on the planet. The hot spots of geological activity make their home on the ocean floor, where jets of scalding hot, mineral-rich water spew forth into the depths of the near-freezing ocean. More »
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When many people hear the word "biodiversity," they immediately think of tropical rainforests, or coral reefs; but as this picture demonstrates, biodiversity is a concept that ought to be more closely associated with the ocean floor, as well. More »
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When Charles Darwin visited the remote Galápagos archipelago in 1835, the observations he made of the islands' various species of long-lived tortoises would play a pivotal role in helping inform his theory of evolution. More »
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One hundred years before the premiere of Fox's new timey-wimey TV series, one of the most punishing nature expeditions ever undertaken also went by the name of Terra Nova. The ill-fated Antarctic excursion was led by explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who was determined to lead the first successful adventure to the South Pole. More »
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For the first time ever, scientists have discovered a species of hybrid shark (a cross between two different species of the cartilaginous fishes) off the coast of Australia. More »
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Check out these screen shots from BBC's forthcoming wildlife documentary series, Great Barrier Reef. More »
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As global temperatures rise and the oceans heat up, a huge question is how fish that are adapted to one set of temperatures will survive this upheaval. Now we know at least one species could adapt fast enough to survive. More »
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There's a famous story about British moths during the Industrial Revolution, who in just a few short generations adapted to their soot-filled environment by evolving a matching black color. And now we've found the global warming equivalent: Dutch ladybugs. More »
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When scientists stumble upon something beautiful in the course of their research, it often takes the form of a more abstract sort of beauty: the elegant simplicity of a unifying theory, or the intricate feedback loops of an intracellular signaling pathway. More »
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Most climate change predictions have only examined the next hundred years. But now a new, even more long-term model suggests that temperatures could rise as much as ten degrees Celsius by 2300 — creating conditions not seen for 34 million years. More »
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Every year the U.N. releases its Human Development Index, a widely-respected ranking of nations based on levels of health care, education, economic growth, and other factors. But now, says one analyst, the long-respected ranking system has to be overhauled. Its definition of "development" is outdated because it doesn't take into account whether any of that development is sustainable from an environmental perspective. So which nations would rise to the top of the HDI if sustainability were taken into account? Chuluun Togtokh, a Mongolian environmental scientist and development policymaker, decided to find out. More »
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About 90% of flowering plants require animals to pollinate them, and that includes about two-thirds of the world's crops. The extinction of pollinating organisms could spell disaster... but the very species that are killing them off could prove excellent substitutes. More »
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Since this summer, a particularly strong monsoon season has caused dangerous floodwaters to raise across Thailand. These waters have killed over 500 people and caused several billion dollars in property damage already. In cities like Bangkok, residents have adjusted to the rising waters by flood-proofing their vehicles in surprising ways and radically altering the urban landscape to stay dry. More »
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A lot of publicly funded research is often called "basic." It may seem useless to some, but can lead to great payoffs in the future. Basic research provides the foundation for monumental discoveries, fosters the development of ground-breaking technologies and gives us the information we rely on when making important decisions, like when and where to build and how strong to make a structure. More »
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Sex is probably the most popular pastime in the history of life on Earth — which makes it all the more ridiculous that so many of us have such a mealy-mouthed way of talking about it. Take the expression "the birds and the bees," which we use to avoid speaking more explicitly about courtship and sex to our kids. More »
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This might seem like a bit of just deserts for all the times people have been woken up early by chirping birds, but human noise pollution is actually making it impossible for birds to mate. Humanity has crossed the line! More »
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Every autumn, around 1,000 of the world's estimated 20,000 polar bears make their way to Churchill, Manitoba, a small town situated on the shore of northeastern Canada's Hudson Bay. There, the polar bears wait for the bay to freeze over so that they can hunt for seals and other marine mammals, and accumulate fat stores that they will use to survive the following summer. More »
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Has your fast-paced, technology-driven life got you feeling out of touch with nature? There could soon be an app for that. More »
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In 2006, researchers undertook an extensive search for Western black rhinos in Cameroon, the place where the species was last sighted. No rhinos were found. Researchers failed to turn up any evidence of their dung, tracks, or signs of feeding. Had the rare subspecies of black rhinoceros gone the way of the dodo? Sadly, yes. More »
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You're looking at an artistic representation of what is known as a Hillis plot — a visual snapshot of the evolutionary relationships connecting Earth's various life forms. Evolutionary biologists would call this a big, circular phylogenetic tree. More »
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The number of species (and entire genera) that are recognized as endangered is growing at an ever-increasing rate. Conservation scientists report in a new survey that they expect the Earth will suffer major hits to biodiversity levels in the years ahead. More »
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As sea temperatures rise, many fish species will have to relocate to find waters that can support them. But they won't have a lot of time to look for the right new home. For fish, it's survival of the fastest. More »
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You're looking at three of the last known hirola on Earth. Since the 1970s, unregulated hunting, habitat destruction and drought linked to climate change have driven the number of these large African antelopes living in Kenya and Somalia from over 14,000 to fewer than 400. More »
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Here's your chance to get in on the ground floor of what's bound to become one of the most important photo blogs ever created. In the history of the internet. Ever. More »
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The Guardian is currently featuring a great interactive applet that pumps out population metrics (including the total number of Earth's human residents) for the year you were born. More »
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Even in decidedly "wealthy" countries, human health is not always guaranteed. In fact, studies show that the best indicator of a country's health is not its overall wealth, but how that wealth is distributed. Time Magazine's Maia Szalavitz reports: More »
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Settlers of Catan has plenty of expansions that change the dynamics of the game, forcing the players to work together, putting a focus on exploration, or drawing emphasis to a certain section of the map. A new variation from publisher Mayfair Games will add a new wrinkle to the basic game, allowing some players to get a boost from their oil fields at the possible cost of ruining the entire island of Catan. More »
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Earth's species are shrinking. As temperatures rise, plants and animals the world over are adapting, some more quickly than others, by becoming smaller — a trend that scientists say could have serious implications for ecological diversity the world over. More »
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For years, scientists have marveled at the seafaring abilities of snails like Janthina janthina (pictured above), which produce a biological bubble-wrap that enables them to float just below the water's surface in oceans around the world. More »
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Male Adelie penguins are some of the most conniving little creatures on the planet. And we let them get away with it. Why? Because they're freaking adorable, that's why. More »
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Back in August, we told you about a free course on artificial intelligence being offered by Stanford University, and co-taught by two world-renowned AI experts. The class officially started today, so if you managed to register for it on time, then good on you. More »
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Hidden in the dark caves of southwest China, a fragment of Earth's last Ice Age might well survive. Sadly, there aren't any mammoths hiding out in there, but tiny plants might represent a last link to 30,000 years ago. More »
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