Biodiversity

"Cabbage moths, corn borers and other plant-eating insects crucial to ecosystems have declined dramatically in East Asia over the past two decades — along with dragonflies and other predator insects that eat them, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances."

"Once they dominated much of the landscape but after centuries of deforestation their dwindling remains – just two per cent of the original – are now believed to be facing an existential threat from a combination of factors, including climate change, the planting of non-native species, and artificially high numbers of deer."

"The dodo bird isn’t coming back anytime soon. Nor is the woolly mammoth. But a company working on technologies to bring back extinct species has attracted more investors, while other scientists are skeptical such feats are possible or a good idea."

"Sturgeon are disappearing from North American rivers where they thrived for millions of years. And the quest to save them is exposing the limits of the Endangered Species Act."

"In the last eight years there have been 535 mountain lions reported killed on California highways — a steady toll of one to two each week that scientists suggest may exceed the reproductive rate of increasingly isolated and inbred puma clans."

"The largest ever outbreak of bird flu is spilling over into mammals, including otters and foxes in the UK."

"The South is experiencing its earliest spring in 40 years of records, while spring is days to weeks early across the East Coast and Pacific Northwest".

"The Alpha and Gamma variants of the coronavirus continued to circulate and evolve in white-tailed deer, even after they stopped spreading widely among people, a new study suggests."

"A fishing community in southern Brazil has an unusual ally: wild dolphins."