Background Articles

The 2015 to 2016 El Niño event brought weather conditions that triggered regional disease outbreaks throughout the world.

Greenhouse gas emissions provide extreme warming on Svalbard.

Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished

Climate change is ravaging the natural laboratory that inspired Darwin. The creatures here are on the brink of crisis.

The Western New York landscape is now strewn with dead and dying Ash trees. The evidence of the Ash Borer's destruction is crystal clear, and our environment may never be the same.

“You can collect pollen off of mosquitoes, indicating they may have a role in pollination,” she said. “And we know that they’re also food for other organisms in the food web.”

ALBANY - After years of trying to slow a voracious Chinese beetle that is decimating ash trees, state environmental officials are waving the white flag: The Department of Environmental Conservation dropped a logging quarantine, and said it might be time to cut healthy trees still uninfested. In a brief notice posted online Wednesday, the DEC repealed logging restrictions that had failed to contain the spread of the emerald ash borer (EAB) by limiting shipments of ash. The state created the quarantine in 2015 to slow the insect, which is a shiny green beetle about the size of a penny. The borer likely will ultimately bring about the end of the state's 700 million ash trees - down from earlier estimates of 900 million ash trees before the beetles' arrival - and forever change an industry that uses ash to produce bats for major league baseball.

Insect populations are declining dramatically in many parts of the world, recent studies show. Researchers say various factors, from monoculture farming to habitat loss, are to blame for the plight of insects, which are essential to agriculture and ecosystems.

Bill Cissel, Extension Agent – Integrated Pest Management; bcissel@udel.edu and David Owens, Extension Entomologist, owensd@udel.edu We have recently captured a large number of green stink bug adults in our black light traps. While there are no established thresholds or recommendations based on trap catches for stink bugs, this does alert us to the fact that …

The studies have established that even in places where plant diversity and abundance have improved, insect numbers still declined.

The winter season of 2016-2017 proved to be the fifth warmest on record for Georgia, sparking an unusually large number of insects during the following warm months.

The study is base on total flying insect biomass in 63 nature protection areas in Germany over the course of 27 years.

In the Arctic, brown bears (Ursus arctos) are expanding their range northward, in some cases competing with and even mating with polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Beavers (Castor canadensis) have been found as far north as the coast of the Beaufort Sea. The list includes mammals, amphibians, fish and insects.

Add the deadly eastern equine encephalitis virus to the list things we might find more of in our climate-changed future.

All persons practicing veterinary medicine in North Carolina shall report these listed diseases and conditions to the State Veterinarian's office by telephone within two hours after the disease is reasonably suspected to exist.

Landmark report says invasive species are major threat to biodiversity and dealing with them requires global cooperation

There were no bugs buzzing around the lights in the parking lot.

An endemic High Arctic bumblebee subspecies, Bombus glacialis, has been discovered by Arkhangelsk researchers on the Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean.

Ecologist

Sheila Colla

has developed an impressive skill. Picture a

Where’s Waldo

puzzle book, but instead of combing the crowd for someone ...

The snakeworm gnat larvae move in columns, possibly to frighten predators and to keep their fragile bodies moist when crossing dry ground.