Ecology

“In this photo, I’m monitoring gulls near Sandgerði, a small fishing village in southwest Iceland. This area is a volcanic peninsula, and although there’s a lot of precipitation, most of the water passes through the rocks and flows underground to the sea. So the places where fresh water is available, such as the lake in Sandgerði, attract a lot of birds.Our project is to screen for strains of avian influenza (bird flu) to study how they spread. We focus on certain species of gull with migration paths that overlap here.Lesser black-backed gulls (Larus fuscus) breed in Iceland during the summertime, and in the winter they migrate to Europe or West Africa. By contrast, the Iceland gull (Larus glaucoides) breeds farther north, in Greenland or Canada, but returns to Iceland for winter. Then there are the local ones, such as the great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) and the glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus), that are here all year round.All of that mixing means that Iceland is a key location for avian influenza viruses from Europe to move into North America, and vice versa.

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“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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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