Ecology

Viewers of the various "extreme angling" TV shows have likely already heard that it's getting more difficult to find big fish in the world's lakes and rivers. A new international study, however, now confirms that there has recently been a drastic decline in populations of large freshwater animals.

​Do trees always exist as single organisms, or can each tree also serve as part of a linked "superorganism?" A recent finding in New Zealand suggests the latter, as a tree stump there has apparently remained alive by joining roots with its neighbors.

Praying mantises may not actually pray, but they do PREY heavily on their fellow insects, along with other small land animals. Now, however, for the first time, scientists have documented a praying mantis catching and eating fish.

Reef-forming coralline algae is currently at risk due to climate change, and scientists are doing something about it. They're creating synthetic reefs in the Mediterranean Sea, made from artificial coralline algae.​

Animals and plants have one of the most ideal relationships in nature. The plants feed the animals and the animals, in turn, spread the seeds of the plants through excrement. But when tree-climbing goats in Morocco eat the fruit of the argan tree, the seed is spread in more-or-less the opposite way.