Forest

Mangroves may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a forest, but they're both incredible, unique ecosystems and serve as a structural and water-cleaning coastguard. These photos capture the wondrous, otherworldly ecosystems.

Often referred to as the lungs of the planet, the Amazon rainforest is in trouble – with around a third reported as already gone or degraded. A pocket of resistance in Peru has now been joined by a dual-armed robotic gardener to help with reforestation.

About 18% of the Amazon rainforest has been cut down since the 1970s. Seeking ways to help get some of that lost forestland back, researchers have turned to a rich soil created by the activities of the Amerindians thousands of years ago.

Whether they’re hacking the brains of bugs or mining gold, fungi are craftier than we give them credit for. Now researchers in Japan have studied how forest mushrooms communicate with each other, and found that they're mostly chatty when it rains.

The way animals disperse seeds throughout landscapes is known to be an important element in promoting growth of forested areas, and a new study over an extended timeframe has shed valuable new light on this process.

In what is described as the first thorough study to track natural forest expansion, researchers have found that nearly 59 million hectares of forest has naturally regrown since 2000, an area larger than mainland France.

When it comes to putting out forest fires, the sooner that they're detected, the better. That's where a new forest-deployed sensor could come in, as it's powered by swaying tree branches.

A new study has determined that Earth’s forests are transforming in response to a combination of human actions and natural processes such as wildfires, causing them to lose their oldest trees and grow shorter.

One of the good things about drones is the fact that they can safely be flown in conditions that would prove hazardous for crewed aircraft. That's where the JC260 unmanned helicopter comes in, as it's designed to fight forest fires.

For the first time, new research describes both gesture-based and vocal communication among wild orang-utans: specifically Southwest Bornean orang-utan mothers and their young.

As far as fighting climate change is concerned, "one whale is worth thousands of trees," the IMF has said. But reports suggesting that trees therefore pale into insignificance compared to whales are missing the point.

The XPrize foundation has today launched a new US$10 million competition geared towards preserving the world's rainforests, a process that begins with building new technologies to help us better appreciate what they have to offer.