The latests assessment of South Africa’s marine biodiversity has added more than 1,000 marine benthic invertebrate species to the country’s known fauna since 2010, bringing the total known marine diversity to more than 14,000 species. The study highlights the critical role of taxonomy, museum collections, and DNA-based approaches in uncovering hidden biodiversity, while revealing significant gaps in our understanding of South Africa’s marine life.

Persistent herbicide residues can remain in agricultural soils long after application, disrupting microbial communities, nutrient cycling, crop productivity, and the long-term resilience of farmland. A new review highlights how carefully designed teams of microorganisms could offer a more effective way to break down these contaminants than relying on individual microbial strains.

Significance: Empirical evaluations of thermal tolerance for tropical species are sparse, and this reduces our capacity to anticipate the impact of the climate crisis on the undescribed morass of wild biodiversity. While theory predicts that heat tolerances ought to decrease and cold tolerances increase with elevation in the tropics, recent meta-analyses concluded that heat tolerance does not change with elevation. We used more than 100 species of rove beetle from a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and found that heat tolerances decrease and cold tolerances increase with elevation, highlighting the vulnerability of tropical mountain species to increased temperature. Furthermore, our work reinforces the knowledge gaps that exist for diverse tropical species as they experience the complicated impacts of the climate crisis.

An international team of researchers from the U.S. and Kenya analyzed a trove of fossilized footprints that were left behind by a troop of eight hominins, first discovered nearly 50 years ago in northern Kenya. The team analyzed the anatomy and movement patterns of the fossil footprints and determined they were made by Paranthropus boisei; the conclusion was surprising because the tracks were similar sizes to those left by Homo erectus, which was long thought to be significantly larger than P. boisei. The new track site also reveals that adult male Paranthropus sometimes traveled in groups around the margins of Lake Turkana. 

A new study documents a set of fossil footprints preserving a snapshot of “fossil behavior” from an ancient hominin group along a lakeshore in northern Kenya around 1.4 million years ago. An international team of researchers from the US and Kenya found tracks showing eight Paranthropus boisei individuals — an extinct “cousin” of modern humans — in one place at one time. All of the individuals are thought to be adults, and some appear to have been much larger in body size than previous estimates based on rare fossil bones.