Forestry

New research reveals that deforestation in the Amazon not only warms immediate surroundings but also impacts areas up to 100 kilometers away. Analyzing data from 2001 to 2020, the study links regional forest loss to a significant temperature rise—4.4 °C in areas with both local and regional deforestation. The findings emphasize the critical importance of understanding how Amazon deforestation contributes to climate change and highlight the potential benefits of reducing deforestation for local, regional, and national scales.

Urban environments have become hotspots for understanding how rapid evolution occurs in response to extreme environmental changes. These habitats exert selective pressures on resident organisms that impact their evolutionary trajectories. Recently, researchers from Japan investigated how the creeping woodsorrel plant might adapt in response to elevated temperatures that result from urbanization. Understanding these effects can help predict evolutionary traits to manage plant evolution in the face of shifting climatic conditions.

A new decade long study from South African National Parks examines the usefulness of high-intensity fires to prevent bush encroachment in the long term and introduces a new approach to tackling the issue.