Living near a forest edge may be an important risk factor for Lyme disease; these liminal spaces provide the perfect habitat for one of the black-legged tick’s favorite hosts.
insects
Hydrology Helps Identify Future Malaria Hot Spots
Complex hydrological processes—not just the amount of rainfall—help determine where malaria-transmitting mosquitoes can thrive.
Record Locust Swarms Hint at What’s to Come with Climate Change
Warming oceans that feed cyclones have also bred record-breaking swarms of desert locusts. Such plagues could grow bigger and more widespread with climate change.
Hydropower and Bugs
Alpine hydropower plants commonly flush sediment that accumulates at intakes, but the associated rapid rise in discharge, turbidity, and streambed instability put aquatic insects at risk.
El Niño May Be a Culprit Behind the Cholera Epidemic in Yemen
Increased rainfall in East Africa and subsequent wind may have brought infected bugs to Yemen, causing the worst cholera outbreak of our time.
Leaf-Cutter Ants Boost Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Soil
Leaf-cutter ant nest openings emit up to 100,000 times more carbon dioxide than surrounding soil, a new study shows.
Insect Infestations Alter Forest Carbon Cycle
A hemlock woolly adelgid outbreak in southern Appalachia prompted a transformation in where the forest stores carbon.
Ant Populations Destabilize Under Warming
In forest experiments in which artificial warming mimicked future climate conditions, heat-tolerant ants thrived, leaving other populations unstable.
Rock-Chomping Bees Burrow into Sandstone
A previously unknown species of rock-excavating bees, discovered 40 years ago but not reported in the scientific literature, finally gets the spotlight.
Bark Beetles Cause Big Tree Die-Offs, but Streams Flow Steadily
Recent beetle epidemics have driven tree die-offs across North America, and previous studies predicted an increase in annual streamflow would follow—but a new study shows this may not be the case.