Discoveries

It appears that Sadie Hawkins Day has made its way into the butterfly world. Or, more likely, the sex role reversal when women ask men out for a date got its start with insects and only…

While it has long been known that plants absorb carbon dioxide for use in photosynthesis, a new study has found that plants play a larger role than previously thought in absorbing certain…

When Mark Urban noticed that some vernal pools contained an abundance of certain salamanders but the same species was scarce or absent in other nearby pools, he wondered why. What the…

Pollinators make the world go ’round, but according to a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, their populations are in rapid decline. Shrinking numbers of insects, bats,…

Lead that for decades accumulated in the duff layer of the forest floor in the Northeast is finally disappearing deep into the soil in low-elevation forests, though the process is taking a bit…

While toxins and noise are often cited for their detrimental effects on wildlife, recent research suggests that light pollution is negatively affecting forest-breeding wildlife as well. “In…

If Ray Fort has his way, the next time you get the flu, the cure might just come from the needles of a New England pine tree. Fort, a chemistry professor at the University of Maine, has found…

Scientists from Colorado State University have produced a first of- its-kind map of the height of the world’s forests by combining data from three NASA satellites. The map reveals that…

In news that will come as no surprise to readers of Northern Woodlands, a team of psychologists has concluded that spending time in nature makes people feel more alive. A series of five…

Good news stories about the environment can seem hard to find these days, which makes it nice to report that power plants across the country have collectively decreased emissions of…

The more researchers learn about barberry, the more they find to dislike about it. The thorny perennial shrub escaped from cultivated landscapes after being introduced to the U.S. in the…

A renewed interest has emerged in recent years in whole-tree harvesting, a practice that has been scorned by many as dangerous to the health of the forest ecosystem because it depletes the…

Health-conscious humans have long known that brightly colored vegetables are healthier than blandly colored ones; turns out, songbirds also pay attention to color when it comes to their food.…

Dartmouth College Professor Richard Holmes has been counting caterpillars at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest for more than 20 years. He was mostly interested in understanding the…

After helping to decipher the genome of the poplar tree in 2006 and finding it had 45,000 different genes, University of Toronto Professor Malcolm Campbell turned to the next logical question:…

The push for new wind power facilities across the country is driving research to understand the various ecological impacts wind turbines may have. One such study may play a role in the siting…

Two wildlife biologists in Rhode Island studying how forest-dwelling game birds make use of their habitat found that the birds unexpectedly exhibited what one described as “the bar scene…

Red maple trees are becoming increasingly dominant in forests throughout the eastern United States, and that worries Kim Steiner. A professor of forest biology at Penn State University,…

Eastern hemlock forests are under siege by the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid, but a University of Massachusetts researcher thinks there is reason to be optimistic that the invasion may be…

The woods of Maine host the greatest abundance of fishless lakes in the Northeast, but their abundance is declining due to state-sanctioned fish stocking for recreational anglers and illegal…