Biodiversity

Amphibian species all over the world are being decimated by hytridiomycosis, a deadly fungal disease. One California scientist working in the Sierras thinks a specific bacterium may help frogs survive.

"In its effort to rid the island territory of Guam of an invasive snake species, the US Navy has enlisted the help of an unlikely set of allies: Dead mice stuffed with a common painkiller."

"The world's oceans may be vast and deep, but a decade-long count of marine animals finds sea life so interconnected that it seems to shrink the watery world."

"With button-brown eyes, striped cheeks and a bushy orange-black tail, the Inyo chipmunk has darted among the gnarled pines of the Sierra Nevada for centuries. But it has apparently vanished."

"Japanese police have launched a probe after nets on holding pens for dolphins in the coastal town of Taiji were cut during an annual hunt, possibly by foreign activists, a press report said Wednesday."

"One in five of the world's 380,000 plant species is threatened with extinction and human activity is doing most of the damage, according to a global study published on Wednesday."

"New efforts to measure what warming temperatures are doing to forests, streams and animals at a regional level are at the core of a strategic plan by the Fish and Wildlife Service to respond to the effects of climate change."

Asian stink bugs have invaded the East Coast, are spreading, and are getting into people's yards and houses. When disturbed, they emit an unpleasant smell.

Are fireflies vanishing from the U.S. and Canada because of light pollution? A new study by the Museum of Science Boston aims to use the backyard observations of hundreds of citizens to find out.

"Across the Far North, populations of caribou — an indispensable source of food and clothing for indigenous people — are in steep decline. Scientists point to rising temperatures and a resource-development boom as the prime culprits."