Discoveries

An investigation of 23,000 tree cores collected in the 1980s from forests throughout the Northeast has found that trees in the region show a strong ability to adapt to local climates. By…

The later start to winter in many recent years has provided winter ticks in northern New England with an extended period of time to find a host animal to feed on, and that appears to be the…

A study of forest fragmentation by a team of researchers at the University of Maine has found that the zoning system used by the state to protect winter habitat for deer is not an effective…

A new tool has been approved in the fight to control invasive pale and black swallowworts, and it’s a good sign for monarch butterflies. The natural enemy of the swallowworts is a Hypena…

The application of road salt to highways, sidewalks, and parking lots has resulted in improved winter driving and walking conditions. But salt is easily dissolved. It leaches into groundwater…

Trees in urban areas provide tremendous benefits to society. They remove air pollution, reduce energy use, filter storm-water runoff, and reduce ultraviolet radiation. They also improve the…

A native fungal pathogen that was once considered relatively harmless has become increasingly damaging to eastern white pines since the late 1990s, and stressed, weakened trees appear to be…

Most microorganisms that digest and recycle woody material do so by producing enzymes that accelerate chemical reactions to break down molecular compounds in the wood. Brown-rot fungi, the…

The recent decline in the population of bees and other pollinators because of pesticides, climate change, diseases, and other causes has raised alarms among those concerned about crop…

Small mammals like squirrels, chipmunks, mice, and voles play a surprisingly significant role in determining the tree composition of most forests. That role is based largely on their choice of…

Applying salt to snowy roadways is an effective way of melting snow and ice and making driving safer. But what happens when that salty snowmelt runs off into nearby lakes and ponds? It has…

Landowners seeking to make money selling carbon credits while also continuing to sell timber have a new forestry technique to consider. A University of Vermont forest ecologist has developed a…

Plants and trees are seldom considered to have acute senses – at least, not like those of many mammals. But scientists at the University of Western Australia discovered that plants have…

In one of the longest-running studies of its kind in North America, the Vermont Center for Ecostudies has documented a 14.2-percent decrease in Vermont forest birds over the past 25 years.…

Hemlock wooly adelgid, the invasive insect from Japan that is wiping out most of the hemlock forests in the eastern United States, is also having a significant effect on the availability of…

As human population grows, forests often become more and more fragmented as trees are cut down to make way for roads, housing developments, office parks, and shopping centers. Most research on…

Many scientists have predicted that as the climate warms, most bird species in the Northern Hemisphere will shift their ranges northward or up the slopes of mountains in order to remain in…

Lawns cover 63,000 square miles of the United States, making turf the largest irrigated crop in the country. As much as some ecologists consider lawns to be biological deserts that Americans…

A team of engineers at the University of Maryland has created transparent wood windows that are waterproof and less breakable than glass. What’s more, the windows provide more even and…

Researchers have long believed that the changing climate will force most species of birds to shift their ranges to follow their preferred climate niches. Rather than adapting to the new…