Biodiversity
Site news
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New research from Stanford suggests climate change will disrupt many age-old partnerships between aspen trees and fungi that are essential to healthy forests.
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Research shows that slowing biodiversity loss will require more knowledge of sex-specific responses to climate hazards like heat waves and extreme temperature fluctuations.
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An optical sensor smaller than a postage stamp could help coastal communities monitor some of the world’s largest marine protected areas.
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A new technique for measuring past topography shows the Himalayas were more than halfway to their summit before a continental collision made them the highest range in the world.
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Researchers have analyzed the shifting patterns of entire dune fields on Earth and Mars, as seen from orbit, and found they are a direct signature of recent environmental change. This new tool can be applied anywhere with dunes, such as Mars, Titan, and Venus.
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Hundreds of students participated in the Stanford Geological Survey, a century-long program that brought undergraduates to the field for extended periods to survey and map the geology of parts of California, Nevada, and Utah. (Source: Stanford News)
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At 12 points around the globe – including one at Stanford – scientists are working to detect when the Anthropocene began. (Source: Stanford Magazine)
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A new method for estimating cliff loss over thousands of years in Del Mar, California, may help reveal some of the long-term drivers of coastal cliff loss in the state. (Source: Stanford News)
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Scientists studied a unique group of Antarctic minke whales and found that these gigantic mammals actually represent the smallest possible body size required for their style of feeding. (Source: Stanford News)
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New findings about how sand deposits form in the deep sea during different climate eras reveal mysterious processes miles beneath the ocean’s surface, and could help future-proof offshore operations like wind farms as the Earth warms and water rises.
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Our health and economic stability depend on biodiversity, but our governing policies often fail to address it coherently. An analysis of the world’s second most biodiverse country, Colombia, highlights how policies that span sectors and actors can fit together to govern biodiversity more effectively. (Source: Stanford News)
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A new study of tropical reef building corals shows these very long-lived animals are constantly changing and testing their genes – and some of these changes make it into the next generation. In this way a centuries-old coral might be a cauldron of genetic innovation, and it might help prepare them for climate change. (Source: Hopkins Marine Station)
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The technique helps us understand ice sheets right here on Earth -- and whether there could be life far, far beyond. (Source: Stanford Engineering)
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Across Antarctica, some parts of the base of the ice sheet are frozen, while others are thawed. Scientists show that if some currently frozen areas were also to thaw, it could increase ice loss from glaciers that are not currently major sea-level contributors.
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New research reveals that, rather than being influenced only by environmental conditions, deep subsurface microbial communities can transform because of geological movements. The findings advance our understanding of subsurface microorganisms, which comprise up to half of all living material on the planet.
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Researchers discover that a spot of molecular glue and a timely twist help a bacterial enzyme convert carbon dioxide into carbon compounds 20 times faster than plant enzymes do during photosynthesis. The results stand to accelerate progress toward converting carbon dioxide into a variety of products. (Source: SLAC)
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Researchers mimicked these extreme impacts in the lab and discovered new details about how they transform minerals in Earth’s crust. (Source: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
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Stanford whale biologist Jeremy Goldbogen discusses recent documentation of orcas teaming up to take down an adult blue whale – “arguably one of the most dramatic and intense predator-prey interactions on the planet.” (Source: Stanford News)
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Geologists have long assumed that the evolution of land plants enabled rivers to form snakelike meanders, but a review of recent research overturns that classic theory – and it calls for a reinterpretation of the rock record.
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Our list includes a mix of favorites, high-impact stories and some of our most read research coverage from a year of uncertainty, adaptation and discovery.
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New research shows that physics measurements of just a small portion of reef can be used to assess the health of an entire reef system. The findings may help scientists grasp how these important ecosystems will respond to a changing climate.
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New research reveals that after its initial formation 100 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada “died” during volcanic eruptions that blasted lava across much of the American West 40 million to 20 million years ago. Then, tens of millions of years later, the Sierra Nevada mountain range as we know it today was “reborn.”
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Research on whale feeding highlights how the precipitous decline of large marine mammals has negatively impacted the health and productivity of ocean ecosystems.
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A sweeping analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years shows the usual rules of body size evolution change during mass extinctions and their recoveries. The discovery is an early step toward predicting how evolution will play out on the other side of the current extinction crisis.
