The number and diversity of insects is declining worldwide. Some studies suggest that their biomass has almost halved since the 1970s. Among the main reasons for this are habitat loss—for example through agriculture or urbanization—and climate change.

These threats have long been known. What is less well-known is how these global change drivers interact and how their effects can become even more severe that way. For example, insects that have been deprived of their natural habitat could be even more affected by higher temperatures in a new environment.

Researchers at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) have investigated precisely this serious interaction at 179 locations throughout Bavaria. The study is part of the LandKlif research cluster, coordinated by Professor Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter within the Bavarian Climate Research Network bayklif.

They published their results in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

For about 2% of the world’s amphibian species, it’s already getting too hot to survive in their natural habitats, according to a new study in Nature. If the planet keeps warming unchecked, this number is expected to jump to 7.5% by the end of the century.

The fact that humans who are not related by blood help each other repeatedly over time is demonstrably true—think of the ongoing mutual support that sustains your longest-running friendships.

The new paper draws on 20 years of research that Rubenstein and his colleagues have conducted on African starlings living in the harsh climate of east African savannas.

More information: Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08958-4

The global wildlife crisis has reached alarming proportions, with monitored wildlife populations plummeting worldwide over the past half-century. While the situation is dire across all continents, Latin America and the Caribbean stand out as the most severely affected region, experiencing a devastating 95% drop in wildlife populations since 1970. This staggering decline represents not just a local ecological catastrophe but a global biodiversity emergency with far-reaching implications for ecosystem stability, human livelihoods, and planetary health.

The Scale of the Decline

The headline statistic is stark: monitored wildlife populations in Latin America and the Caribbean have declined by an average of 95% between 1970 and 2020. To put this in context, this means that for every 20 animals that existed in the region in 1970, only one remains today. This unprecedented collapse far exceeds the already concerning wildlife population declines in other regions: Africa has lost 76% of its wildlife populations, Asia-Pacific 60%, and the global average stands at 73%.

According to the WWF’s Living Planet Report 2024, these findings emerge from monitoring 5,495 animal species and 35,969 populations globally. The consistent downward trajectory across regions underscores the systemic nature of this crisis, but the exceptional severity in Latin America and the Caribbean highlights the particularly intense pressures facing this biodiversity-rich part of the world.

Causes of Wildlife Decline

Habitat Loss and Degradation

The primary driver of wildlife population collapse in Latin America and the Caribbean is habitat loss and degradation, particularly from agricultural expansion and rampant deforestation. The Amazon rainforest, which houses approximately 10% of the planet’s known biodiversity, has been especially hard hit, with vast areas converted to farmland and cattle ranching operations. Between 2000 and 2018, the Amazon lost approximately 513,016 square kilometers of forest — an area roughly the size of Spain.

Overexploitation

Unsustainable hunting, fishing, and illegal wildlife trade constitute the second major threat to biodiversity in the region. Commercial fishing has depleted marine wildlife populations, while hunting — both for subsistence and commercial purposes — has decimated many terrestrial species. The illegal wildlife trade, estimated to be worth up to $23 billion annually worldwide, continues to target the region’s unique and valuable species.

Climate Change

Climate change acts as a multiplier of existing threats and is noted as a particularly acute pressure in Latin America and the Caribbean. Rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and increasing frequency of extreme weather events disrupt habitats, alter species ranges, and stress already vulnerable populations. The region’s rich but fragile ecosystems — from tropical forests to coral reefs — are especially susceptible to climate-induced changes.

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The unexpected discovery on Mexican islands in the Caribbean makes it crucial to conserve the animals' habitats

Passive acoustic monitoring of biodiversity involves capturing the sounds of animals emitted intentionally or unintentionally in a wide variety of ecosystems, using acoustic recorders. It is used to monitor cetaceans, numerous insects and crustaceans, bats and birds, frogs, as well as a large number of fish and other mammals, in order to understand their behavior, distribution and activities.

The findings are published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography.

• The first comprehensive vertebrate survey in Nepal’s Madhesh province has documented 163 fish, 24 amphibian, 578 bird and 900 mammal species, highlighting the region’s ecological significance despite a lack of protected areas.
• Infrastructure expansion and human-wildlife conflict pose challenges to the province’s biodiversity, fueled by rapid development of roads and railway lines.
• Researchers call for multilevel conservation strategies, including stronger wildlife laws, school-based awareness programs, establishing ecological corridors, and translocating conflict-prone species to tiger habitats.

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Archive link: https://archive.is/myNkt

Pollution has cut the amphibian’s numbers by 99.5 percent, but scientists believe Mexico’s cultural icon could return.

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Scientists suggest social spiders are more about going with the flow than sticking to a role, after new research challenges the idea of fixed personalities.

The world's coral reefs are undergoing the largest coral bleaching event on record, which has affected at least 83 countries and territories.

The carnivorous "bone collector" caterpillar is the only known species of its kind, researchers say, and its ancient lineage may soon die out.

Researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa detailed their discovery in a paper published Thursday in Science. The caterpillar—which they’ve dubbed the “bone collector”—uses the disguise to live hidden within a spider’s web, where it can prey upon other small bugs that get stuck inside. Unfortunately, the unique caterpillar’s continued survival is likely under threat, since it’s only known to exist on a single mountain range on one Hawaiian island.

Archived (Wayback Machine):

• earth.com article
• full study in Nature as webpage and PDF

• A rare population of leucistic, or partially white, purple-faced langurs near Sri Lanka’s Sinharaja Forest Reserve has attracted ecotourism interest, even as monkeys in general are perceived by farmers as crop-raiding pests.
• Unlike albinism, leucism causes a partial loss of pigmentation, and researchers have documented around 30 white langurs in the area.
• The unique langurs have helped transform the village of Lankagama into an ecotourism hub, benefiting the local community and conservation efforts.
• The presence of white monkeys across Sri Lanka, including rare cases of albino primates, highlights the island’s rich biodiversity and the need for further research and protection.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4684877

Jason Baldes drove down a dusty, sagebrush highway earlier this month, pulling 11 young buffalo in a trailer up from Colorado to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. His blue truck has painted on the side a drawing of buffalo and a calf. As the executive director of the Wind River Buffalo Initiative and Eastern Shoshone tribal member, he’s helped grow the number of buffalo on the reservation for the last decade. The latest count: the Northern Arapaho tribe have 97 and the Eastern Shoshone have 118.

“Tribes have an important role in restoring buffalo for food sovereignty, culture and nutrition, but also for overall bison recovery,” he said.

The Eastern Shoshone this month voted to classify buffalo as wildlife instead of livestock as a way to treat them more like elk or deer rather than like cattle. Because the two tribes share the same land base, the Northern Arapaho are expected to vote on the distinction as well. The vote indicates a growing interest to both restore buffalo on the landscape and challenge the relationship between animal and product.

While climate change isn’t the main driver behind the push to restore buffalo wildlife status, the move could bring positive effects to the fight against global warming. Climate change is shrinking Wyoming’s glaciers, contributing to drought, and increasing wildfires. While buffalo might give off comparable emissions to cows, increasing biodiversity can promote drought resistance and some herds of buffalo have been shown to help the earth store more carbon.

Full Article

• Bats are one of the most diverse orders of mammals and represent an important component of ecological balance. They may make up a large portion of the mammal diversity — including in countries like Rwanda where much of the natural forest and savannah habitats have been lost, changed or degraded.
• Researchers recently discovered two rare bat species in Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park, and the IUCN lists 54 species of bats as occurring in the country.
• Research shows that killing bats to control zoonotic diseases can make things worse.
• Several studies show that bats are important predators of insects and are, therefore, a natural asset for agrarian productivity, suppressing pest populations.

Archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• study cited: webpage or PDF

• The recent “Assessment of the Ecological Health of the Gulf of California” report shows a decline in several populations of animals throughout the narrow sea flanked by the Mexican mainland and Baja California.
• The report was compiled by the Next Generation Sonoran Desert Researchers (N-Gen) in the U.S. in collaboration with Prescott College’s Kino Bay Center field station in Mexico, and draws on long-term monitoring studies.
• Many of the assessed groups, such as seabirds, whales, giant squid, crabs, starfish and fish, are in decline.
• Basic primary productivity, which nurtures species diversity and abundance in the Gulf of California, remains stable.

Archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• report cited (PDF)

In the mid-1990s physicists Geoffrey West and Louis Bettencourt collaborated with biologists to study allometric scaling laws, where it is generally found that larger organisms are more efficient consumers of energy than smaller ones. After mathematically explaining these laws through fractal network effects, the researchers began applying them to the human built environment, particularly cities.

Certain environmentalists and sustainability advocates mistook the significance of these results, leading to decades of policy work and investments in urban growth that, West now admits, are doomed to fail.

The fact that so many, including the originators of the work, got this story wrong reflects the cultural blinders and techno-biases that typify most of us living in high energy modernity. Doing the opposite of our conditioned response to the overshoot predicament will likely lead to more favorable outcomes.

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Cross-posting for the biology lesson.

To safeguard threatened plants, science must unravel the hidden biology of often-persnickety seeds as they age, sleep and awaken