Ecology, The Environment and Conservation

For the first time ever, a University of Alberta researcher has discovered that an animal species has changed its genetic make-up to cope with global warming. In the past, organisms have shown the flexibility–or plasticity–to adapt to their surroundings, but this is the first time it has been proven a species has responded genetically to cope with environmental forces.

Dr. Stan Boutin, from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, has been studying a

Action on Chemicals Pollution and Support for Africa Agreed at End of Global Environment Ministers Meeting

UNEP’s 22nd Governing Council Starts Making Johannesburg Plan of Implementation Operational

A global crackdown on mercury pollution, an agreement to help rescue the environment of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and assistance for small island states to reduce their vulnerability to climate change, were among the key agreements made at the end of an international en

The danger of a future Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska’s Prince William Sound has declined substantially since the State of Alaska, environmentalists, oil companies, and the fishing industry brought together a risk management team, according to a study in a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).

Measures taken before the formation of the risk management team had brought down the risk by 75%. Actions taken based on the late 1990’s r

A largely overlooked but significant factor in marine ecology concerns the effects of variable pH on the growth rate and abundance of coastal marine phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain in productive coastal waters. The pH of the open ocean varies very little. This has led to the common, but faulty, assumption that the pH of coastal waters also varies little and is unimportant.

In an article in a recent issue of the scientific journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, URI Graduate

Globalization of commerce, especially by ships and air traffic, transports hitchhiking plants and animals around the world and in many cases they become pests in the new location –– according to an article in the February 6 issue of the journal Nature. One advantage that could explain their success is that the invaders often arrive without the parasites that hold them in check at home.

First author Mark E. Torchin, assistant research biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara,

The face of Europe’s mountains is changing and could be altered forever if declining agricultural trends continue, warn scientists behind a major new EU research project announced today.

The Euro3.2 million “BioScene” project co-ordinated by the Wye campus of Imperial College London and sponsored by the European Union will evaluate the threats and the opportunities for wildlife conservation resulting from declining agriculture and seek ways of reconciling conservation of biodiversity wi