Ecology

Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible interactions among species.

Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps collectively construct a variety of coral shapes.

Under the sea ice during the Arctic’s pitch-black polar night, cells power photosynthesis on the lowest light levels ever observed in nature.

Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators, collect pollen and more. New experiments explore how evolution may have influenced this phenomenon.

To calculate the amount of carbon stored inside peatlands, researchers developed a unified theory of “bog physics” applicable around the world.

More than 50 years after Bob Paine’s experiment with starfish, hundreds of species have been pronounced “keystones” in their ecosystems. Has the powerful metaphor lost its mathematical meaning?

Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on their species but on the roles they play.

Because tree seedlings don’t grow as well when close to their parents, more tree species can be packed into tropical forests.

Extreme microorganisms carpeting the Atacama Desert in Chile illuminate how life might have first taken hold on Earth’s surface.