Ecology

Vast expanses of coral in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have died as a result of extremely high water temperatures.Credit: David Gray/AFP/Getty Surging temperatures worldwide have pushed coral reef ecosystems into a state of widespread decline, marking the first time the planet has reached a climate ‘tipping point’, researchers announced today.They also say that without rapid action to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, other systems on Earth will also soon reach planetary tipping points, thresholds for profound changes that cannot be rolled back.“We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” says Steve Smith, a social scientist at the University of Exeter, UK, and a lead author on a report released today about how close Earth is to reaching roughly 20 planetary tipping points. “This is our new reality.”Temperature spikeLed by Smith and other scientists at the University of Exeter, the report assesses the risk of breaching tipping points such as ice-sheet collapse, rising seas and dieback of the Amazon rainforest. The report also discusses progress towards various positive tipping points focused on social and economic change, such as the adoption of clean energy.The group’s first such assessment, released less than two years ago, raised alarms but did not officially declare that any climate tipping points had been reached. In the past few years, however, global temperatures have surged, sparking concerns among some scientists that global warming is accelerating and could lead to even more widespread impacts in the coming decades than the changes that have already been recorded.Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is ‘transforming’ because of repeated coral bleachingThe impact on coral reefs in the past two years has been particularly severe, pushing these ecosystems to their tipping point, the researchers say.The warming waters have caused corals across the globe to bleach, a process that occurs when corals expel the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients, oxygen and vibrant colours. The fourth global bleaching event in the past few decades began in January 2023, and researchers estimate that it has affected more than 84% of the planet’s coral ecosystems .The initial tipping point report talked about large-scale threats to corals in the future tense, but the latest global bleaching event has made it clear that the crisis is now, says Michael Studivan, a coral ecologist at the University of Miami in Florida. “We are there,” Studivan says, suggesting that coral reefs are facing massive disturbances that are both more severe and more frequent. “The period of recovery typically happens in between disturbance events is not really happening anymore, and that’s kind of the big problem for corals.”

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A corroboree frog is tested for chytrid fungus. Introducing genetic changes to these frogs could help to make them more resistant to infections.Credit: James Cook UniversityThe global conservation community is debating whether to ban the release of genetically modified organisms into the wild. Dozens of non-governmental organizations have called for a moratorium on field applications of synthetic biology — a technology being studied as a tool to fight diseases, control pests and help endangered species — saying that the approach has unpredictable consequences. But some researchers argue that an outright ban is too restrictive, and could have negative consequences for human health and biodiversity.How genetically modified mosquitoes could eradicate malariaA proposal for a ban will face a vote next week at a congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Abu Dhabi. The IUCN brings together governments and civil society organizations to guide global conservation policy. Although decisions made by its members are not legally binding, they do influence legislation in many countries, says biologist Piero Genovesi, head of the Wildlife Service at the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research in Rome.If members vote in favour of the proposed ban, it “could have stronger impacts in areas like Europe or Australia, where there are many lines of research focused on developing new tools based on synthetic biology for improving the efficacy of conservation action”, Genovesi says. He is among more than 240 scientists who have so far signed an open letter asking IUCN members to reject the moratorium.Ongoing debateThis is not the first time conservationists have debated whether the genetic engineering of wild species should be allowed. A moratorium on gene drives, a way of introducing engineered genes so that they spread rapidly through a population, was proposed at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in 2016, and again in 2018 — but was ultimately rejected.Those in favour of the latest proposal argue that the effects of genetic biotechnologies on nature — and on insects in particular — are hard to predict and could be irreversible. “These new technologies risk adding to the pressures already threatening pollinators,” said Joann Sy, scientific adviser at POLLINIS, a non-profit organization based in Paris that is focused on the conservation of bees and other pollinators, in a statement released by the organization. More than 80 researchers have signed an open letter in support of the moratorium, which says that the deployment of genetically modified organisms is “advancing faster than safety and risk assessment can keep pace” and that “no release should occur unless and until it can be demonstrated that there are no direct or indirect risks to pollinators, biodiversity or ecosystems”.Genetically modified apple reaches US stores, but will consumers bite?

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Marine protected areas (MPAs) are key to conservation at sea, yet fishing is allowed in more than 90% of them. Defining the types of fishing that are compatible with conservation goals is urgent, given that the United Nations high seas treaty — a global accord with a mechanism for creating MPAs — comes into force in early 2026.
Competing Interests
The authors declare no competing interests. More

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In the 1960s, scientists classed chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans as a distinct family (Pongidae), thinking that these great apes had long diverged from humans. Few scholars expected that, in nature, these apes would display strikingly human-like behaviour. Jane Goodall, who has died aged 91, overturned this view with her groundbreaking observations of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).Jane Goodall’s legacy: three ways she changed scienceHer discoveries foreshadowed the genetic evidence showing that chimpanzees, bonobos (Pan paniscus) and humans are more closely related to one another than to gorillas (Gorilla spp.) and orangutans (Pongo spp.). The findings had a major role in shifting perceptions towards recognizing the importance of emotions, personalities and complex cognition, reshaping scientific and public understanding of human evolution. She was a tireless advocate for conservation, the welfare of captive chimpanzees and the protection of habitats — work now carried forwards through the Jane Goodall Institute in Washington, DC.Her fascination with animals began early. Born in north London in 1934, she famously disappeared during a Second World War air raid when she was around six years old, only to be found sitting quietly in a chicken coop, watching a hen lay an egg. She often told this story to illustrate the patience and curiosity that defined her life’s work.In 1957, after working as a secretary for some years, Goodall accepted a friend’s invitation to visit Kenya. In Nairobi, she sought out the renowned palaeontologist Louis Leakey, who invited her to join him and his wife Mary on a fossil-hunting expedition in Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, known as the Cradle of Humankind for its rich deposit of early hominid fossils and stone tools. During the trip, she committed to studying chimpanzees in what is now called Gombe National Park in Tanzania — a small, 35-square-kilometre patch of forest that Leakey had long hoped to investigate.Biggest ever study of primate genomes has surprises for humanityTo prepare, she persuaded John Napier, a leading anthropologist, to tutor her privately in primatology. She was dismayed to learn that the main chimpanzee study of the time, conducted in 1929–30, had lasted for only four months and had been done by a large, intrusive expedition operating in classic colonial excess. She was not surprised that it had produced few results.By contrast, when she arrived in Gombe in July 1960, she spent many months patiently tracking chimpanzees in the hills, sometimes sleeping alone in the park. By her fourth month, she had made her first world-shaking discoveries: chimpanzees not only ate and shared meat but also fashioned tools. The tools were modified grass stems that were then used to extract edible termites from their mounds (J. Goodall Nature 201, 1264–1266; 1964).Her findings earned her long-term support. In 1961, she began a PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK, under zoologist Robert Hinde, who encouraged her to focus on social relationships, individual personalities and the expression of emotions. She gained intimate access to chimpanzees by providing them with bananas, which allowed her to document their lives in unprecedented detail. She observed their political manoeuvring, deception, coalitional aggression and cooperation outside family groups — behaviours that indicated previously unsuspected levels of social intelligence.

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Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism Thea Riofrancos W. W. Norton & Company (2025)It was meant to be the world’s grand fix for the climate crisis: nations would make their economies greener by transitioning to renewable-energy technologies, electrifying transport and digitalizing the global economy to reduce material use. After years of fraught negotiations, countries agreed to this global transition at a momentous summit in Paris in 2015. But the fix has proved to be more complex.In Extraction, an illuminating examination of the emerging renewable economy, political scientist Thea Riofrancos takes a close look at one crucial element: lithium, which is essential for producing batteries and other technologies. Drawing on fieldwork with affected communities and analyses of projections that anticipate a massive increase in mining to propel emerging green technologies, she argues that the narrow focus on emissions has fuelled the illusion of “capitalism without carbon”, exposing a moral dilemma at the core of the green transition.Why the green-technology race might not save the planetRiofrancos challenges these assumptions and, working with specialists, models alternatives: more public transport, cycling, walking, denser cities, fewer cars and higher recycling rates. Instead of chasing a single net-zero future, in which the amount of carbon emissions emitted is balanced against the amount removed, she suggests multiple zero-emissions worlds that balance climate goals against the protection of people and ecosystems.Throughout Extraction, the reader learns how treating carbon emissions as a purely technical problem has produced a race to procure lithium, opening up vulnerable regions to companies that often act like neo-colonial powers.Chile provides a strong case study. Riofrancos focuses on the country’s lithium-rich Atacama Desert, a high-altitude, bone-dry landscape of “dazzling days and spectacularly starry nights”. Humans have lived there for at least 12,000 years. In fact, for 1,500 years, trade networks across the plateau linked the mountains to the Pacific Coastal Plain. Yet, as early as the sixteenth century, those seeking the region’s minerals described the landscape as barren and lifeless — a claim used to justify Spanish colonial rule and mineral extraction. After independence in 1818, the Chilean government recast the region as having “economic potential”.Why the EU must reset its Green Deal — or be left behindRiofrancos’s fieldwork highlights the science and technology of extracting and processing key minerals. Through interviews with Indigenous communities, environmentalists, union members, scientists, lawyers, regulators and corporate actors, she reveals competing agendas and visions of green futures.It’s through these interviews that she first encounters her central dilemma: the clash between renewable energy and Indigenous rights and between climate action and biodiversity. She follows this tension from South America to decision-making centres in the European Union and the United States, where major powers are trying to ‘de-risk’ their economies by shifting supply chains — either towards allies or back home.These strategies are a result of wealthy industrial nations belatedly waking up to the fact that China has leapfrogged them and scaled up the production of electric vehicles and renewables and secured dominance across supply chains, from mine to market. Importantly, and driven mainly by competition between the United States and China, this re-ordering of industrial leadership has fuelled geopolitical tensions. It has unravelled ties of interdependence and sparked a race for crucial minerals, as well as a battle over who will control the technological imperium.Electric vehicles use lithium-powered batteries. Credit: Jade Gao/AFP/GettyRiofrancos’s close-up study of the lithium supply chain suggests that the worst is yet to come. Trade barriers and the growing reliance on transactional deals risk turning entire regions back into sites of exploitation, undermining hopes for a just transition to green energy.

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“In this photo, I’m examining some of the animals in my care. I work as an ecologist at the St John’s Island National Marine Laboratory, which is sited on a small island off the coast of mainland Singapore.The tank I’m leaning over contains sand-filtered seawater pumped directly from the ocean. The baskets are kept afloat by air-filled tubes and contain white short-spined sea urchins (Salmacis sphaeroides). We keep the urchins like this so we can keep track of individuals and reduce the spread of disease.My work aims to understand the ecology of the sea urchins and other marine invertebrates and promote their conservation. My colleagues and I want to gauge how the creatures react to changes in environmental conditions, such as temperature, salinity and the pH of the water.We also host threatened species to guard against extinction: if there was an event that hurt a wild population, I’m fairly confident we could renew the natural stock.Finally, we’re exploring how we can use aquaculture to combat damage caused by the wildlife trade. Some marine species in southeast Asia, including sea urchins, are harvested from the wild for aquariums. Perhaps the animal groups we keep here could be sold into the aquarium trade directly instead.

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Colossal Biosciences as a company name was picked to engage children, says chief executive Ben Lamm.Credit: Colossal BiosciencesThe meaning behind our monikerColossal Biosciences, in Dallas, Texas, describes itself as the world’s first de-extinction company. It aims to revive lost species using CRISPR gene-editing technology, including the mammoth (Mammuthus spp.). It attracted controversy when it announced it has ‘de-extincted’ the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus), a large-bodied wolf species that last roamed North America during the ice age that ended some 11,500 years ago. Its co-founders are technology entrepreneur Ben Lamm, Colossal’s chief executive, and George Church, the company’s genetics adviser, who also holds academic research positions at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. In the third article of a six-part series about science-company names and how to choose them, Lamm describes how the name ‘Colossal Biosciences’ came about. The fact that the world will lose up to 25% of all biodiversity between now and 2050 is a huge problem. At my company, we asked ourselves, how do we come up with a name that encompasses three elements: the problem, the solution and our flagship species, the mammoth? Climate change, biodiversity, CRISPR and gene editing, artificial intelligence, computational analysis and advanced embryology can be difficult concepts for the public to fully grasp. We came up with ‘Colossal Biosciences’ because losing species is a colossal problem, our solution is colossal and the mammoth is a colossal animal.We felt that our brand and name should not only reflect the problem and solution, but also be approachable to children, including some who will grow up to read Cell, Nature and Science. Every week, we get little pictures of dodos and baby mammoths that kids draw, and their parents mail us physical letters, saying things such as: ‘Thank you so much for doing what you’re doing. My kid is excited about science. You’re making science cool.’ A big, awesome nameTo come up with Colossal, I worked with Chris Klee, executive vice-president of design at the company, and Chris Stevens, co-founder of Maven Creative, our branding agency, in Orlando, Florida.We’ve worked together for the past 20 years. We had a list of seven or eight potential names — including ‘Huge’, ‘Macedon’ (an ancient kingdom) and ‘Footprint’ (because every species has a unique one). Everything was centred around the concept of ‘big and awesome’. Obviously, ‘Mammoth’ was on the list because the world is facing a mammoth challenge, but we felt that calling it that would have pigeonholed us to one species. We also liked ‘Colossus’, and the idea of using ‘us’ to signify a team effort. But Colossus is a character in the Marvel Universe media franchise, and we didn’t want to be too Hollywood. We also considered names linked to evolution, and thought ‘Darwin’ could be a cool one. But when we said ‘Colossal’ out loud, we were like, ‘That’s it!’ Alongside the name, there’s the brand — so before we decided on Colossal, we underwent a process to come up with a brand that encapsulated ‘Harvard University meets 1980’s MTV’.

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