How are butterflies in the Alps responding to rising temperatures? A University of Würzburg study shows that species with a poor capacity to regulate their body temperature are particularly likely to shift to higher elevations.

New research finds that hope has two distinct sides—and only one consistently motivates climate action. Across three studies in Israel and the United States, researchers found that a strong wish for environmental change was a more powerful predictor of sustainable behavior than optimism that change will actually occur.

What if the secret to drought-resistant crops isn't how much water plants use, but when they use it? A new study identifies a daily window that could help breeders develop tomatoes that better withstand drought without sacrificing yield.

A recent study by Lanzhou University's Center for Pan-Third Pole Environment has revealed a climate-sensitive, multi-sphere bacterial metacommunity on the Tibetan Plateau, reshaping our understanding of microbial connectivity across alpine ecosystems. Analyzing 3,373 samples from five habitats, the team identified precipitation as a key driver with dual effects—homogenizing most ecosystems while enhancing microbial uniqueness in glaciers. The breakthrough calls for integrating microbial monitoring into plateau ecological security assessments.

f you want to know how rapidly pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will impact future forest ecosystems, you have to look into the distant past. The researchers behind a new study published in Science have done just that, reconstructing the forest canopy of 56 million years ago, during a massive and abrupt emission of carbon into the atmosphere during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). For the first time, the authors of the study used fossilized leaf cells to reconstruct the tree canopy of the PETM, Earth’s most recent period of comparable global warming, with chilling implications for our near future.    The authors found that the PETM was marked by a widespread browning of Earth's landscapes. Against a backdrop of elevated atmospheric CO₂, global warming, and reduced rainfall triggered by volcanically driven carbon release, plant species migrated northwards, and canopy cover declined, accelerating erosion and disrupting the terrestrial water cycle. The human-caused climate change happening now is pumping CO2  at an order of magnitude faster than the ancient parallel. Trees are at the root of these drastic changes.