News by Subject Biology

Even in the absence of bark beetle outbreaks and wildfire, trees in Colorado subalpine forests are dying at increasing rates from warmer and drier summer conditions, found recent University of Colorado Boulder research.

Humid tropical forests, vital in global efforts to limit rising temperatures, are under threat as a result of changes in land use and climate. Now, researchers reporting in the journal One Earth on July 23 have developed a new way to keep tabs on the vulnerability of these forests on a global scale using satellite data called the tropical forest vulnerability index (TFVI).

A new study shows that DNA duplication has been vitally important throughout the evolutionary history of gymnosperms, a diverse group of seed plants that includes pines, cypresses, sequoias, ginkgos and cycads.

New research shows that modelling hyperspectral- and thermal-based plant traits can help in the early detection of Phytophthora-induced symptoms in oak decline.

Triggered by the 2015-16 El Niño, extreme drought and associated mega-wildfires caused the death of around 2.5 billion trees and plants and emitted 495 million tonnes of CO2 from an area that makes up just 1.2 per cent of the entire Brazilian Amazon rainforest, and 0.01 per cent of the whole biome.

While tropical forests remain threatened and their future is uncertain, the importance of understanding how well individual protected areas avoid deforestation increases. Researchers from the University of Turku and University of Helsinki, Finland, have investigated this question in a newly published study that focuses on the State of Acre in Brazilian Amazonia.

Roadless national forests in the American West burn more often and at a slightly higher severity than national forests with roads, but the end result for the roadless forests is greater fire resilience, Oregon State University researchers say.

Scientists have published a global study on the effectiveness of protected areas in preventing deforestation. The study, published 29 June 2021 in Environmental Research Letters, explored the success of country-level protected areas at reducing forest loss, and used machine learning to uncover some of the factors that contribute to differences in effectiveness.