Biodiversity
Site news
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The Stanford ecologist traces quiet shifts in the natural world – and how they circle back to human health. PhD student Phil Roberge takes us on a tour of his lab.
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Jennifer Brophy uses genetic tools to help plants adapt to climate change. Lately, she has focused her efforts on improving crops to reduce the need for chemical pesticides that can contaminate air and water.
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For Earth Systems master’s student Tom Ramsay, an internship focused on assessing the natural capital of wetlands in Uruguay inspired new interests and career ambitions.
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A microbiologist discusses her research into the robust lipid membranes of ancient microbes to reveal secrets about Earth’s environmental past and future.
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Our list includes a mix of favorites, high-impact stories, and some of our most-read research coverage from the past year.
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Adam Pellegrini engages in collaborations and field experiments across the globe to examine how ecosystems respond to global change and predict their resilience to major disturbances, such as wildfires, droughts, and disease outbreaks.
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Gretchen Daily, professor of biology and faculty director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project, discusses valuing nature’s benefits to people and scaling an initiative to 75 countries in this episode of the Stanford Ecopreneurship podcast.
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Natural Capital Project scientists offered up holistic development solutions at the 30th UN climate conference, where there was growing recognition of nature’s role.
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Stanford researchers are studying how changing weather patterns, rising temperatures, and ecological shifts affect the global food system, while developing ways to improve food security for all.
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An analysis of shark tooth shapes, a proxy for body size and diet, reveals species with specialized traits are most at risk of extinction. The findings are the latest example of the biodiversity crisis affecting the tree of life’s most distinctive branches. Unless threats like overfishing are addressed, “you end up with a more boring world.”
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Ninety years of tidepool observations in Monterey Bay have taught Stanford researchers about climate change impacts on the ocean and the evolution of science.
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New analysis of isotopes preserved in ancient seafloor sediments suggests oxygen levels in Earth’s deep ocean stabilized at modern-day levels long after the rapid burst of evolution that gave us most major animal groups.
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Projects in Armenia, the People’s Republic of China, the Cook Islands, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka have integrated nature’s benefits to people in policy, lending, and operational decisions.
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Scholars including Daniel Neamati, a TomKat Center Graduate Fellow, and Tadashi Fukami, a professor of Earth system science, rely on aerial imagery to enhance their understanding of landscape changes and ecological recovery at at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma).
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Stanford researchers discovered that a nearly forgotten variety of black peas from the northwest Himalayas in India is genetically distinct from other peas and outperforms them.
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Stanford marine biologist Steve Palumbi uses fundamental science to find practical solutions to pressing questions about ocean life and its future. His lab’s work on the effects of heat waves on marine life has implications for the environment, economies, health, and culture.
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Scientists have long known that biodiversity has increased over geological time, but corresponding trends for the sheer abundance of living things have never been calculated, until now. The findings add to data suggesting that conserving biodiversity is essential for the health of humans and our planet.
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A new water market model for the Colorado River basin could improve water security and restore ecosystems amid intensifying shortages.
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As a recipient of a TomKat Graduate Fellowship for Translational Research, PhD student Lauren Gillespie develops tools for estimating biodiversity in ecosystems.
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Supported by the Stanford School of Medicine, the School of Engineering and the Doerr School of Sustainability, a symposium on May 7 focused on ways synthetic biology can promote a sustainable world.
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Bioengineering professor Michael C. Jewett shares how Stanford researchers are working with the building blocks of biology to produce greener chemicals, more climate-resilient agriculture, and new ways to repurpose food waste.
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New research shows that when predator species like California sheephead thrive, they keep hungry sea urchins and other grazers from devouring kelp forests struggling to recover from marine heat waves. Scientists estimate kelp forests’ annual exposure to once-rare heat will more than quintuple by 2100.
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Factors affecting the survival of the California native trees are more complex than previously understood, with deer and seedling-supporting “nurse plants” playing unexpected roles.
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For millions of years after the end-Permian mass extinction, the same few marine survivor species show up as fossils all over the planet. A new study reveals what drove this global biological uniformity.
