Prince of DarknessSpotlight 08.24.2022Helmet jellyfish have taken over a Norwegian fjord, demonstrating the species’ tenacity and offering clues about environmental factors that can upend an ecosystem.
Past the SaltArticle 07.14.2022In San Francisco’s salty South Bay, an ambitious wetlands restoration project is seeking to balance a return to the ecological past with the realities of a changing future.
Clear Water RevivalPhoto Essay 05.02.2022In a biodiversity wonderland hardly known outside South Africa, a decades-long effort to restore native fish and their streams is starting to pay off—but new trouble could undermine this fragile comeback.
Undertakers of the ForestSpotlight 05.02.2022Tiny, shape-shifting slime molds have an outsized influence on the cycle of life.
Ghana’s Sacred MonkeysArticle 04.19.2022Myth and mystery have long protected two species of monkey and the West African forests they depend on, but for how much longer?
The Tale of the Trojan TroutArticle 02.21.2022Can the introduction of a modified invader save the West’s native fish?
City Owl, Country OwlSpotlight 01.21.2022Unlike their more iconic cousins, diminutive northern pygmy owls occasionally manage to raise families in urban forests—some little more than a stone’s throw from the local café.
Nomads of the NorthPhoto Essay 11.24.2021A writer and photographer shares an intimate portrait of the annual migration and uncertain future of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd.
Water Makes a Hive ThriveSpotlight 11.04.2021Just like us, honeybees can die if they get too hot. To cool off, they’ve devised their own kind of air conditioning, ferrying water home and then fanning it with their wings.
Bringing out the DeadArticle 10.28.2021By sinking a wide array of carcasses into the deep ocean and studying what turns up when they fall, scientists are learning about some of the world’s most exotic scavengers and the roles they play in the darkness.
A River’s Right to FlowArticle 10.22.2021Indigenous communities and conservationists around the world are challenging the view of water as a human commodity, and fighting to keep this precious resource in the ecosystems it sustains. Can the same approach work in the arid Southwest?
Letters Between TreesArticle 09.09.2021With a pandemic and record-breaking fire season raging, two individuals, seemingly worlds apart, find solace in their connections with one another and within the ecosystems they call home.
Signs of the TimesArticle 07.08.2021Despite their perceived abundance, the periodical cicadas that emerged across the eastern United States this summer point to a growing set of threats facing both the insects themselves and the ecosystems they help support.
What it Means to be WildOpinionReview 07.08.2021Against the backdrop of a world so thoroughly altered by humankind, Emma Marris’s latest book, Wild Souls, challenges our assumptions about nature and how we protect it.
Antarctica’s Upside Down WorldArticle 05.12.2021Clinging to the underside of ice hundreds of meters thick, strange communities of sea life eke out a living in perpetual darkness. Now, researchers are racing to find and study these creatures before they—and their ice sheets—disappear.
Life, Death, and Renewal in the Campo RupestrePhoto Essay 04.22.2021In a little-known region of Brazil that calls to mind Tolkien’s Middle-earth, unique lifeforms have evolved to endure innumerable environmental challenges. Can they survive the country’s latest era of deregulation?
Extraordinary Animals and the People Who Love ThemReview 03.29.2021The new book Beloved Beasts hacks through the undergrowth of the conservation movement in search of a clear path forward.
Home on the RangeArticle 03.23.2021Once thought to be extinct, tule elk have returned to roam across California’s Point Reyes National Seashore, but the park—which also supports beef and dairy cattle—is getting crowded.
Scales of ReferenceArticle 03.11.2021Collected at the tail end of British Columbia’s “silver fever,” hundred-year-old salmon scales are now helping conservation scientists reconstruct and better manage the populations of one of Canada’s most important fish.
Swamp SentinelsArticle 02.18.2021Buried in mud for millennia, some of New Zealand’s ancient kauri trees are revealing surprising clues about Earth’s climate—past, present, and future.
