The presence of the carp, a freshwater invasive species spread worldwide, is alarmingly reducing the populations of diving ducks and waterbirds, according to a study published in the journal Biological Conservation by the researchers Alberto Maceda Veiga, from the Biodiversity Research Institute of the University of Barcelona (IRBio) and Raquel López and Andy J. Green, from the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC).

This is the first study which clearly shows the ecological impact of the carp on water birds in Mediterranean shallow lakes, and it warns about the dramatic effect of this invasive species on other species such as the white-headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala) and the red-crested pochard (Aythya farina), classified as endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (UICN).

Biodiversity loss is one of the driving factors in ecosystem change, on par with climate change and human development. When one species, especially a large predator, disappears from an area, other populations will be affected, sometimes changing entire landscapes.

Iron-rich meltwater from Greenland’s glaciers are helping fuel a summer bloom of phytoplankton.

Spilt crude oil has repeatedly polluted and even destroyed marine ecosystems. An effective measure would be to remove spilt oil slicks by absorption into a separable solid phase. As Indian scientists now report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, congelation of the oil to a rigid gel within impregnated cellulose and scooping the particles out is possible.

"Now I know mosses have a whole secret world,” says Jean, a University of Saskatchewan biology PhD student. “It’s like discovering a mini forest in the forest.” 

Not just pretty, mosses contribute up to 30 per cent of Canada’s boreal forest total growth every year, while maintaining the organic floor necessary for evergreens to grow. 

As the infamous floating “garbage patch” churns up bits of plastic in the tropical Pacific Ocean, a University of Washington undergraduate has discovered a related problem much closer to home: nearly invisible bits of plastic on Puget Sound beaches.

As a year-long project toward a UW bachelor’s degree, the oceanography major visited 12 beaches around Puget Sound to tally the number of microplastics, generally classified as fragments between 0.3 and 5 millimeters (1/100 to 1/5 of an inch) or smaller than a grain of rice.

If it’s all in the timing, then climate change may spell problems for bees. Scientists have found that global warming may cause temporal mismatches between bees and the plant species on which they depend for food.

Right now, a prairie dog in Colorado is busy increasing soil carbon retention, increasing water infiltration, and clipping vegetation that will help maintain local grasslands and provide nutritious forage for large herbivores like cattle and bison. And, somewhere in Mexico, a pollinating bat is ensuring agave plants make good tequila.

University of Adelaide researchers have for the first time demonstrated that the ocean acidification expected in the future will reduce fish diversity significantly, with small ‘weedy’ species dominating marine environments. 

Hot new imagery from temperature-sensing cameras suggests that bats who warm up from hibernation together throughout the winter may be better at surviving white nose syndrome, a disease caused by a cold-loving fungus ravaging insect-eating bat populations in the United States and Canada. The study by researchers with Massey University in New Zealand and the USGS was published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution.