Most animals move through their habitats focused on survival rather than construction. They eat, dig, travel, and reproduce ...

Grassland degradation fundamentally reshapes how biodiversity supports ecosystem multifunctionality, shifting it from being plant-dominated to being mediated by soil microbes, according to a new study ...

New research shows prairie dogs play an outsized role in nutrient cycling, adding to their list of beneficial services as ecosystem engineers. Ann Batdorf, Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation ...

Some animals matter so much to their ecosystems that losing them is like removing the keystone from an arch—the entire ...

Grass, clover and herbs are the foundation of Swiss agriculture: Two-thirds of Switzerland's agricultural land is grassland, much of which is barely suitable for arable farming. Vast areas of ...

• Previous studies have shown that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can influence plant diversity and ecosystem productivity. However, little is known about the effects of AMF and different AMF taxa ...

Rupestrian grasslands form an ecosystem of extremes: covering a mere 0.8% of Brazil’s territory, they are home to 15% of the nation’s flora. Of the 5,700 plant species catalogued, 40% can only be ...

Beavers are among the most prominent ecosystem engineers. Their dam-building activities divert and stagnate streamflows, flooding adjacent areas, and forming new wetlands that provide habitat for ...

A US-Spanish research team studied the ecological effect of a solar photovoltaic array located on a managed grassland plot using a hydraulic and soil hydrology model and field measurements. They found ...

Scientific research is a collaborative process. Sometimes that looks like a lot of small contributions from a whole lot of researchers. UC Santa Barbara’s Sedgwick Reserve was among 100 sites on six ...