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ecology

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ecology

A Physicist’s Approach to Biology Brings Ecological Insights

By Gabriel Popkin
October 13, 2020
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The physicist Jeff Gore tests theories about microbe communities experimentally and finds new rules governing ecological stability.

John Priscu holds an ice core sample in a sterile laboratory.
Q&A

He Found ‘Islands of Fertility’ Beneath Antarctica’s Ice

By Steve Nadis
July 20, 2020
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John Priscu’s search for life that thrives under ice took him to subglacial lakes at the South Pole. Now he has his eye on Mars and Europa.

Illustration of a flying albatross, a swimming basking shark and the Lévy walk paths they take.
behavior

Random Search Wired Into Animals May Help Them Hunt

By Liam Drew
June 11, 2020
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The nervous systems of foraging and predatory animals may prompt them to move along a special kind of random path called a Lévy walk to find food efficiently when no clues are available.

Stalks and spore bodies of a slime mold rise above a smooth surface.
Abstractions blog

Out-of-Sync ‘Loners’ May Secretly Protect Orderly Swarms

By Jordana Cepelewicz
May 21, 2020
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Studies of collective behavior usually focus on how crowds of organisms coordinate their actions. But what if the individuals that don’t participate have just as much to tell us?

Close-up of water swirling among rocks at the sea’s edge.
microbiology

Inside Deep Undersea Rocks, Life Thrives Without the Sun

By Jordana Cepelewicz
May 13, 2020
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Newly discovered worlds of microbes far beneath the ocean floor, inside old basaltic rocks, could point to a greater likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe.

A rock, a piece of paper and a pair of scissors, each formed from a mass of microbes, are arranged in a cycle.
ecology

Biodiversity May Thrive Through Games of Rock-Paper-Scissors

By Carrie Arnold
March 5, 2020
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Recent findings add weight to the evidence that the intransitive competitions between species enrich the diversity of nature.

Art for "Quanta’s Year in Biology (2019)"
2019 in Review

The Year in Biology

By John Rennie
December 23, 2019
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Researchers explored the zone between life and death, charted the mind’s system for arranging ideas and memories and learned how life’s complexity emerged.

Scanning electron micrograph of a cluster of coccolithophores.
ecology

How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry

By Christie Wilcox
October 1, 2019
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Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life.

Root glowing green against black background. Small spheres and threadlike filaments surround it.
ecology

Soil’s Microbial Market Shows the Ruthless Side of Forests

By Gabriel Popkin
August 27, 2019
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In the “underground economy” for soil nutrients, fungi strike hard bargains and punish plants that won’t meet their price.


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