We care about your data, and we'd like to use cookies to give you a smooth browsing experience. Please agree and read more about our privacy policy.
  • Physics

  • Mathematics

  • Biology

  • Computer Science

  • Topics

  • Archive

What's up in

ecology

Photo of the female penis structure of the cave insect Neotrogla aurora.
Abstractions blog

Why Evolution Reversed These Insects’ Sex Organs

By Jordana Cepelewicz
January 30, 2019
Read Later

Among these cave insects, the females evolved to have penises — twice. The reasons challenge common assumptions about sex.

Art for "Forests Emerge as a Major Overlooked Climate Factor"
climate science

Forests Emerge as a Major Overlooked Climate Factor

By Gabriel Popkin
October 9, 2018
Read Later

New work at the intersection of atmospheric science and ecology is finding that forests can influence rainfall and climate from across a continent.

Art for "How Nature Defies Math in Keeping Ecosystems Stable"
ecology

How Nature Defies Math in Keeping Ecosystems Stable

By Veronique Greenwood
September 26, 2018
Read Later

Paradoxically, the abundance of tight interactions among living species usually leads to disasters in ecological models. New analyses hint at how nature seemingly defies the math.

Q&A

On Waste Plastics at Sea, She Finds Unique Microbial Multitudes

By Elizabeth Svoboda
September 13, 2018
Read Later

Maria-Luiza Pedrotti is illuminating the unseen worlds of plastic-eating bacteria that teem in massive ocean garbage patches.

Abstractions blog

Why Nature Prefers Couples, Even for Yeast

By Jordana Cepelewicz
July 17, 2018
Read Later

Some species have the equivalent of many more than two sexes, but most do not. A new model suggests the reason depends on how often they mate.

ecology

Cores From Coral Reefs Hold Secrets of the Seas’ Past and Future

By Elizabeth Svoboda
May 29, 2018
Read Later

Layered deposits of coral skeletons hold vast stores of environmental data from thousands of years ago, including annual records of ocean temperatures, water pollution and storm activity.

Art for "A Thermodynamic Answer to Why Birds Migrate"
ecology

A Thermodynamic Answer to Why Birds Migrate

By Jordana Cepelewicz
May 7, 2018
Read Later

New modeling studies suggest that birds migrate to strike a favorable balance between their input and output of energy.

Abstractions blog

Complex Animals Led to More Oxygen, Says Maverick Theory

By Jordana Cepelewicz
March 21, 2018
Read Later

For decades, researchers have commonly assumed that higher oxygen levels led to the sudden diversification of animal life 540 million years ago. But one iconoclast argues the opposite: that new animal behaviors raised oxygen levels and remade the environment.

520px photo of phytoplankton
Abstractions blog

Evolution Saves Species From ‘Kill the Winner’ Disasters

By John Rennie
February 12, 2018
Read Later

Modelers find evidence that a combination of competition, predation and evolution will push ecosystems toward species diversity anywhere in the universe.


Previous
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Next

The Quanta Newsletter

Get highlights of the most important news delivered to your email inbox

Recent newsletters


  • About Quanta
  • Archive
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Simons Foundation
All Rights Reserved © 2022