News and Opinion

New study finds ants are darker in rainforest canopies

New research shows for the first time that ants in the rainforest canopy are on average twice as dark as ants found on or below the ground, an adaptation thought to protect them from UV-B rays and water loss.

Badger behaviour inside the cull zone

ZSL study shows survivors of culls cover 61% greater areas potentially increasing risk of transmission to cattle.

A modelling tool to rapidly predict weed spread risk

A new statistical modelling tool will enable land management authorities to predict where invasive weed species are most likely to grow so they can find and eliminate plants before they have time to spread widely.

Researchers use drones to weigh whales

Researchers have devised a way to accurately estimate the weight of free-living whales using only aerial images taken by drones.

Private boats in the Mediterranean have extremely high potential to spread alien species

A Mediterranean wide study has found that 71% of sampled recreational boats hosted alien marine species. Over half carried an alien species that was not yet present in the marina the boat was visiting.

Scientists and key figures develop vision for managing UK land and seas after Brexit

Researchers have outlined how fishing and farming policies could be created to protect employment opportunities and the environment after Brexit.

Breeding songbirds alter their singing behaviour in selectively logged tropical forests

Researchers working in Malaysian Borneo are learning that songbirds change how they sing in tropical forests degraded by selective logging.

New study measures how much of corals’ nutrition come from hunting

Research reveals that corals source more nutrients than previously thought from hunting, information that may help predict the fate of coral reefs as global ocean temperatures rise.

Nature documentaries increasingly talk about threats to nature, but still don’t show them

Researchers analysing recent BBC and Netflix nature documentaries found that although they increasingly mention threats to nature, visual depictions of these threats remain scarce, potentially misleading audiences on the state of the natural world.

Wildlife and wind farms: Are British gulls staying safe in the winter sun?

New research shows that Lesser Black-backed Gulls breeding in Britain could be vulnerable to collisions with wind turbines whilst on migration and during the winter months as well as during the breeding season.

Flowering wild plants to promote beneficial insects in the field

Research details which flowering plants are used by pollinators and beneficial insects as food sources over the course of the year.

eDNA: a new tool to establish invasive species eradication success

Research published today examined how environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys can be used as a cost-effective method to detect invasive species present at  low densities.

Using artificial intelligence to track birds’ dark-of-night migrations