Ecology

“In this photograph, I am using radio tracking to monitor European wildcats (Felis silvestris) with my daughter, Sabana. I love this image, because it brings together my two worlds: science and motherhood. It is important to me to inspire her love for nature, and my life as a field biologist allows me to do this almost every day. We are in the Sierra Harana, southern Spain, where wildcats have been monitored with radio tracking and camera traps for the past eight years. So far, we have fitted radio collars on 18 individuals and are now tracking 4 females and 3 males.These cats are elusive and understudied, especially in the Mediterranean region. There’s more research on the reproductive ecology of cheetahs, say, in remote areas, than on wildcats in Europe.Wildcat populations are in sharp decline and the animals are now absent from much of their former range in the Iberian Peninsula, owing to legal predator control and illegal killings, as well as road accidents, habitat fragmentation and hybridization with domestic cats. In Mediterranean areas, a decline in their main prey — rabbits — due to viral diseases seems to be the key factor. Understanding the balance of all of these factors is crucial to identify potential threats, reassess the need for greater protection and urge governments to take conservation action.

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The third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), to be held in Nice, France, in June, could help to redefine global ocean governance. But the conference’s political statement — the UNOC3 ‘zero draft’ declaration — (see go.nature.com/3ejp7hb) addresses only the environmental and economic pillars of ocean conservation and sustainable development.
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Cave-bat fieldwork often looked like a scene from the 1995 film Outbreak.Credit: Warner Bros/AJ Pics/AlamyFor years, I was a bat ecologist, fully immersed in the grind of data collection and publications. My research on cave-bat conservation took me to remote locations, crawling through caves knee-deep in guano, catching bats. Back then, taking photos felt like a distraction from my research.But two years ago, I left the academic world for a career as a science communicator at the GENUS hub at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in South Africa. Today, I work alongside researchers, helping them to bring their science to life through compelling stories. Visuals, particularly photographs, are a key part of this work.Looking back, I wish I’d captured more of my field experiences. Photos are priceless tools for public engagement, yet many researchers fail to see their value. Now, I understand that science doesn’t just live in publications — it lives in stories, visuals and the personal connections that we create with people.Pics, or it didn’t happen During my postdoctoral position in ecology and viral zoonosis at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, my team and I worked mainly in a rural part of Limpopo, on the northeastern side of South Africa, in a small village called Ga-Mafefe. The landscape was lush and green, dotted with ancient fig trees and alive with the rhythm of daily life.Photography: Science on cameraWithin minutes of arriving at the cave site at the base of a steep hill, my team from the Centre for Viral Zoonoses would transform a patch of wilderness into a fully functioning research station, complete with a working centrifuge, powered by portable car batteries. We would dress head-to-toe in white, crinkly Tyvek suits (a type of lightweight, protective, plastic onesie that could shield both us and the bats from contaminants). With respirators humming, we looked like something straight out of the 1995 medical-disaster movie Outbreak.For a week every month, this was my reality. I’d catch bats with specialized traps, and then spend hours hunched over folding camping tables carefully measuring the animals and collecting biological samples. Summer nights were sweltering, with sweat pooling in our suits; meanwhile, winters had us shivering, our noses running faster than we could wipe them, although wiping wasn’t exactly an option. It was exhausting, repetitive and, at times, comically miserable — but it was also exhilarating. We were a well-oiled machine, driven by a shared passion and the late-night humour that only a sleep-deprived team in the middle of nowhere could understand.Then in 2022, I did a three-month science-storytelling fellowship with the Nature, Environment and Wildlife Filmmakers — an organization that aims to build a network of visual storytellers, led by Indigenous African voices, celebrating and protecting Africa’s natural history — and it completely changed my perspective. I rediscovered my creative side and came to understand that scientific exchange can take many forms beyond just research papers. Armed with this newfound inspiration, I started taking photographs of everything during our fieldwork, capturing the beauty and intensity of our work.Mariëtte van der Walt back in her bat-fieldwork days.Credit: Mariette van der WaltBack home in Johannesburg, my family and friends were captivated by the stories my photos told. Through my lens, they saw breathtaking landscapes, rough conditions and, of course, cute bats. I felt like my work could connect with people in a way data alone never could.With this perspective, I realized that as much as I loved my research, my postdoctoral studies weren’t the right place to pursue my newfound passion for storytelling. I decided to leave academia and embrace a career in science communication.Ecologists: don’t lose touch with the joy of fieldwork

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In their Comment article, Alexandre Antonelli and his colleagues highlight the potential of voluntary biodiversity credit markets in meeting global conservation goals (see Nature 634, 1045–1049; 2024).
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The United Nations COP16 biodiversity meeting held in Cali, Colombia, last year revealed a stark shortfall in global conservation funding, with pledges of only US$163 million against the $200 billion needed each year (see Nature 635, 264–265; 2024). A pivotal, yet overlooked, element in closing this gap could be the education of financial professionals.
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Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which put a spotlight on US health disparities, led to increased domestic helicopter research in the country.Credit: Scott Hurd/Alamy‘Helicopter research’ doesn’t happen just when researchers from rich countries swoop in and exploit the resources of low-income ones — rich universities are increasingly taking advantage of poorer institutions in the same country, and often in the same neighbourhood.Marylin Fraser, the head of the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, a non-profit organization in New York City that focuses on community health and education, has experienced this at first hand. Several times a year, she says, researchers at prestigious US institutions come to her asking to recruit study participants from her community.Fraser turns many away for neglecting to consider the community’s input or failing to recognize and compensate the work that the institution would contribute by facilitating collaboration. She now accepts only the proposals that share funding and project leadership with researchers at Arthur Ashe. It’s exhausting, says Fraser. “You feel as though you are always in a constant fight.” This experience is not unique. Around the world, many resource-poor institutions that support marginalized communities, such as Indigenous peoples or Black and Latine groups, are courted by staff and researchers at nearby well-off institutions who lack the understanding to create equitable partnerships. “The issue is that a privileged person is taking advantage of a less-privileged one. It can be very patronizing,” says Adriana Romero-Olivares, a microbial ecologist at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.Described as ‘domestic helicopter research’ in Cell last year1, the term refers to a well-documented scenario in which scientists from wealthy countries conduct research in low- or middle-income countries with little to no involvement of local communities and researchers. The “helicopter” or “parachute” collaborators leave, taking data and expertise from local people instead of working to ensure that they are engaged with and benefit from the research. 2024 Research LeadersDomestic helicopter research — often focused on race, ethnicity or genetic ancestry — occurs when unequal partnerships form between researchers in the same country. It results in the “erosion of trust between researchers and the communities they aim to serve”, wrote Marcus Lambert, a public-health epidemiologist at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in New York City, and his co-authors in the Cell commentary. A major concern, he says, is that the practice seems to be on the rise in the United States and elsewhere.Harmful effectsOne damaging aspect of domestic helicopter research is that it “saps funding” from poorer institutions, Lambert and his co-authors say. In the past three years, less than one-third of funding from the US National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities — a department that aims to address health challenges faced by minority racial and ethnic groups, rural populations and those with low socio-economic status — has gone to the poorer institutions that serve these communities.Researchers are also concerned that such work often doesn’t serve the people who were asked to participate, and can sometimes harm them. A 2020 paper led by Brandon Brown, a public-health researcher at the University of California, Riverside, describes a case study in which a community leader had agreed to work with a researcher from a US university on a survey about HIV and ageing2. The local leader was expected to recruit participants and pay for a space to conduct the survey. He then had to fight to get access to the resulting survey material, which he discovered contained stigmatizing and outdated terminology. He also found out that there were no plans to disseminate the data or results in a way that might help the participants or their wider community.When Brown presented the paper at a conference, he received criticism from some attendees for naming the researchers involved. “I responded that this is why it keeps happening — because it’s invisible,” he says.Lambert and his colleagues say that the COVID-19 pandemic — which brought US health disparities into sharp focus — has led to an increase in domestic helicopter research across the country. Health-equity studies gained more funding as a result of the pandemic, and the recipients sought out more researchers and participants from poorer communities. This has led to surging cases of domestic helicopter research, the Cell commentary states.There are no data on the incidence of domestic helicopter research worldwide, but Fernanda Adame, an environmental scientist at Griffith University in Nathan, Australia, says that it’s likely to be more common in countries that have large wealth disparities. “If you don’t address it, your research is not going to be as good, as you will have limited information and limited impact,” she adds. “If you didn’t speak to the people involved [in the research], they are less likely to use that information.” Positive changes

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Download the Nature Podcast 5 February 2025In this episode:00:45 How arithmetic skills don’t transfer between applied and academic environmentsMathematics skills learnt in real-world situations may not translate to the classroom and vice versa, according to a new study. A team surveyed children in India who work in markets, to see whether the skills they learnt there transferred to the classroom. Although proficient at solving market-based arithmetic problems, they struggled to solve problems typically used in schools. The reverse was seen for children enrolled in schools with no market-selling experience. The authors hope this finding could help adjust teaching curricula and bridge the gap between intuitive and formal maths.Research Article: Banerjee et al.12:38 Research HighlightsWolverine populations rebound in Sweden and Norway, and why wobbly arrows launch faster than rigid ones. Research Highlight: Who’s the new furry neighbour? It might be a wolverineResearch Highlight: How a wobbly arrow can achieve superpropulsion14:59 The unexpected movements seen in super-dense crowdsA study has revealed that when packed crowds reach a certain density, large groups of people suddenly start to move in circular patterns — a finding that could be used to identify dangerous overcrowding. By assessing footage of the densely packed San Fermín festival, a team observed this spontaneous phenomenon, and modelled the physics underlying it. Studying the movements of giant crowds has been difficult, and the team hope this work could help event organizers to identify and respond to situations where people could get hurt.Research Article: Gu et al.News and Views: Crowds start to spin when their densities hit a thresholdSound effects: Crowd Cheering – Ambience by GregorQuendel via CC BY 4.0Cupinzano sounds by Europa Press – Footage News via Getty Images24:00 Briefing ChatAn update on the US National Science Foundation’s scrutinizing of grants to comply with President Trump’s directives, and why scratching an itch may have unexpected antibacterial properties.Nature: Exclusive: how NSF is scouring research grants for violations of Trump’s ordersNature: Why it feels good to scratch that itch: the immune benefits of scratchingSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.Never miss an episode. Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music or your favourite podcast app. An RSS feed for the Nature Podcast is available too. More

In January, an attempt to illicitly release lynx (Lynx lynx) into the Scottish Highlands failed (see go.nature.com/42nhzqu), with all four animals being captured and one subsequently dying. High-profile illicit releases of now-established beaver (Castor fiber) and pine marten (Martes martes) populations in Scotland have complicated politically sensitive discourses around the reintroduction, translocation and removal of species.
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