ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

While site fidelity may be beneficial for animals when environmental conditions don't change very fast, those benefits may not be realized in the ever-changing world dominated by humans, researchers have found through a review of scientific literature.

The sun rises on the savannas of central Kenya. Grasses sway in the wind as hoof-steps fall on the dusty ground. A menagerie of Africa's iconic wildlife congregates around a watering hole to quench their thirst during the region's dry season.

A new mathematical model describes the interactions between a population and a toxicant in a river environment, enabling researchers to study how the way in which a pollutant moves through a river affects the wellbeing and distribution of the river's inhabitants.

Scavengers are supposed to have generalist diets and eat whatever they can find. But a new study shows Australia's Tasmanian devils have their own specific tastes and preferences -- in other words, they're picky eaters.

Arctic coasts are characterized by sea ice, permafrost and ground ice. This makes them particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which is already accelerating rapid coastal erosion.

A team has shown that the CLASSY gene family regulates which parts of the genome are turned off in a tissue-specific manner. The work identifies the CLSY genes as major factors underlying epigenetic diversity in plant tissues. This research has broad implications for both agriculture and medicine.

Scientists have demonstrated the power of artificial intelligence to predict which viruses -- like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that led to the COVID-19 pandemic -- could infect humans, which animals host them, and where they could emerge.