"Malaysia has lost about 20% of its #coral reefs, equivalent to 47,250 football fields, over the last three years since 2022, with reef conditions continuing to deteriorate nationwide, according to Reef Check Malaysia’s Annual Survey Report 2025" 🪸 #Malaysia 🇲🇾 #ClimateEmergency

Very effective illustration of what has happened to Florida's coral reefs in response to anthropogenic climate and environment change. The loss of this important ecosystem is all but complete - attempts to rescue it discussed here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🪸🧪🌊

NEW: North Atlantic right whales - a species whose fortunes I've followed for years - are having a baby boom!! 21 mother-calf pairs have been sighted so far, the highest figure in years. And we're not even halfway through the calving season (which runs to mid-April). www.wired.com/story/a-nort...

“microbes are still largely ignored in conservation biology and policy” And, while microbes include bacteria, fungi, viruses, archaea, protozoa, and all are important in ecosystem functioning, most microbial conservation focuses on fungi doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

🧪🌏 Opinion: Coral species from another ocean may be the only way to save Caribbean reefs. #coralER @pnas.org @texas-ib.bsky.social @texasscience.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The invasive spotted lanternfly is a prodigious producer of honeydew, a sweet, sticky substance that attracts such a variety of arthropods that it may rearrange local food webs. A new study finds arthropods in 35 families feeding on SLF honeydew, including ants, wasps, katydids, and more.

Not all earthlings appreciate CTD’s but the can be very curious about them. Here are a mother polar bear 🐻‍❄️ with her two cubs inspecting our sea cable in the Canadian 🇨🇦 Arctic Ocean back in 2015 youtu.be/JC2befsNa1Y The CTD is 2000 m down. The bears were not hurt and swam off shortly after 🌊

Humans use local dialects to communicate with honeyguide birds phys.org/news/2026-01...

Habitat loss and development in the Rockies drove America's last caribou population in the lower 48 states to near extinction. The few remaining individuals were captured and sent to British Columbia. Now a mulitnational effort is underway to bring them back and protect old-growth forests. 🌎

Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below! Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage

Official UK Government national security assessment on global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse not getting the attention required from news outlets. UK food security under threat. #ClimateCrisis #environment #biodiversity #soils #water #food www.gov.uk/government/p...

24% of people who voted Labour at the last general election now plan to vote Green or Lib Dem. 0% of those who voted Reform at the last election now plan to vote Labour.

once again, I think I'm grateful to have long ago memorized W. H. Auden's "The Fall of Rome"

Cornell Labs wants to give you good info for gardening for birds. Join up! (also good for pollinators and other critters) #NaturalHistory #Ecology #Conservation mindly.social/@joewynne/11...

New paper links Salmonellosis disease dynamics to avian irruptions mediated by transmission at bird feeders - with subsequent spillover to humans causing severe illness and death 🪶🌎 #ornithology #UKBirding www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #BirdFeeding #Rethink @mwtingley.bsky.social

And out of all the wild mammals left on Earth today, the 5% (by mass) include 3% marine animals and only 2% for all the terrestrial ones (From the study: www.nature.com/articles/s41... with pic adapted for openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/c...)

Mummified cave cheetahs inform rewilding actions in Saudi Arabia www.nature.com/articles/s43...

COW TOOLS COW TOOLS COW TOOLS

Denise Levertov, from Candles in Babylon (1982)

For #RedSquirrelAppreciationDay on 21 January, we’re giving a talk on using scent detection dogs for red squirrel conservation with Conservation K9 Consultancy and Cairngorm Conservation Dogs. @uksquirrelaccord.bsky.social is hosting the talk 12-1pm. Sign up here: buff.ly/iyFCvYq 📷 Libby Welbourn

New paper with many smart people, led by Nico Eisenhauer & Marie Sünemann @eisenhauerlab.bsky.social, surveying the state of literature on the effects of soil biodiversity on ecosystem functioning www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Forest biodiversity experiments test how species diversity affects forest ecosystem functioning. A Review in Nature Reviews Biodiversity discusses key findings from these experiments and puts them into context with observational studies from forests. go.nature.com/4sEQkfZ 🔒

“Encouraging elephants to migrate can help relieve overpopulation in some areas, but any corridor invariably intersects with human communities, making it both vital ecological infrastructure and a social challenge.” 🌎 news.mongabay.com/2025/12/corr...

If the Palestine Action hunger strikers die - which they could do at any moment, as they are now very close to the end - it will be the government that killed them. Today’s column explains why. Please share, and write urgently to your MP. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I often get asked about the Miyawaki method of forest restoration, usually by people who have heard extraordinary claims for it. Morales et al. (2025) have reviewed the evidence and found it to be weak or absent. 🌏🧪🌳🌲 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Winter blooming of hundreds of plants in UK ‘visible signal’ of climate breakdown www.theguardian.com/environment/... Great article by Ajit Niranjan in @theguardian.com about the @bsbibotany.bsky.social #NewYearPlantHunt #NYPH

Alchemy, state capitalism, geopolitics, $18 billion worth of gold, and the risk of environmental destruction in a critical watershed in Idaho, in my latest investigation - following China's ban on the critical mineral Antimony: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

How about some good news? We got some indications that offshore windfarms can actually improve underwater ecosystems and diversify aquatic life. 🧪🌊 Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Humans have driven biodiversity gains in Europe for eight millennia. Are we simply the latest megafaunal species to generate the complex, diversity-boosting habitat mosaics Europe's ecosystems need? 🌏🧪🌐 Read OA here: eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/23... #Biodiversity #ScienceSky #SciComm

"As we protect what’s left of nature, we seem to end up paradoxically making its vestiges more designed, covered in human fingerprints and nested in systems of artificial interventions and technologies proliferating through organic fabric." www.noemamag.com/how-to-build...

A new study from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the Marine Megafauna Foundation finds that young Caribbean manta rays often swim with groups of other fish, creating small, moving ecosystems that support a variety of marine species.

Tawny owls normally rely on sound to hunt, but new research being presented today at #BES2025 finds that owls in Glasgow are adapting to noisy roads by using street lights to hunt. www.britishecologicalsociety.org/tawny-owls-a...

Want a science-based guide for effective climate solutions, with no greenwashing, no hype, and no BS? Check out the new Drawdown Explorer. 100% evidence-based. Beautifully presented. No subscriptions. No paywalls. And it’s 100% free. Forever. Drawdown.org/explorer

In this map of greenhouse gas emissions per hectare of peat, the Fens in the UK stand out as an angry red blob. The Fens are a carbon bomb. To defuse it, we need to pressure its landowners, like the Church Commissioners. (Via @annieleymarie.bsky.social) Study: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Published!📖 This study shows that choosing the most effective restoration strategy for tropical forests at scale depends equally if not more on economic and logistical than ecological constraints. Read more:https://buff.ly/MTipuln

A Comment from Wang and Svenning discussing the European Green Belt as a prototype for rewilding-grounded nature-based solution for supporting ecosystem resilience. Link: https://bit.ly/4aKWWmn Readcube: https://bit.ly/48Palra

We're so excited to see this!

A huge thanks to Carolyn Wells for choosing my feature for @noemamag.com “How to Build a Thousand-Year-Old Tree” among her top reads for 2025! longreads.com/2025/12/08/c... It's not too late to sit down for a longread on oak trees and advanced technologies

The zeppelin raids on London during the first world war. www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/...

@christopherbrown.bsky.social might like to see this.

UN Report: Investing in planetary health would deliver higher GDP, fewer deaths, less poverty

A new study shows that over 90% of insect biomass declines are driven by shrinking species numbers, posing a risk to ecosystem function. www.idiv.de/majority-of-... #biodiversity

Käse et al. The world's oldest man-made biological experiment nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Solar panel areas can be designed to be better for bird diversity than cropland: Ecovoltaic solar energy development can promote grassland bird communities besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #solarpanels #birds #energy #greenenergy #jernmarker

Hi freelancers, I just posted a call for pitches for @technologyreview.com's upcoming print issue. The theme is Nature. Pitch deadline is December 5. More info here! www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Centuries of compounding human influence on Amazonian forests. The distribution of abundances of useful Amazonian tree species in 1500 plots suggests widespread ecological imprints of pre-Columbian indigenous and post-contact colonist people on modern forest composition. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Only 2 years since the ban on neonics, France's population of insect-eating birds has risen 2-3% - from banning a single type of insecticide. Demonstrating just how much harm we cause birds when pesticides kill off the insects they need for food. @paneurope.bsky.social

Human health and ecosystem health are connected - In-depth reporting on amphibian die-off in Central America, and downstream implications for malaria incidence featuring work from my colleague Mike Springborn wapo.st/47Slsij