Two paleontologists studying ancient fossils they excavated in the South Australian outback argue that Earth’s ecosystem has been complex for hundreds of millions of years – at least since around 565 million years ago, which is included in a period in Earth’s history called the Neoproterozoic era.

United States federal officials flushed billion of gallons of water into the Grand Canyon on Wednesday, in an experimental effort to distribute sediment throughout the river and restore the ecosystem to a more natural state.

In Puget Sound, scientists and managers must restore endangered orca populations and Chinook salmon populations as they work to restore an entire ecosystem. The needs of these two species present a prime example of how previous single-species strategies do not work in ecosystem restoration.

There is a 50 percent chance Lake Mead, a key source of water for millions of people in the southwestern United States, will be dry by 2021 if climate changes as expected and future water usage is not curtailed, according to a pair of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.

To help resource managers improve the health of coastal waters degraded by nutrient pollution, a group of scientists has developed a framework for prioritizing stream restoration efforts aimed at reducing the amount of nitrogen flowing downstream.

The preservation of coastal ecosystem services such as clean water, storm buffers or fisheries protection does not have to be an all-or-nothing approach, a new study indicates, and a better understanding of how ecosystems actually respond to protection efforts in a “nonlinear” fashion could help lead the way out of environmental-versus-economic gridlock.

A team of researchers, led by biologists at Dartmouth, has found potentially dangerous levels of mercury and arsenic in Lake Baiyangdian, the largest lake in the North China Plain and a source of both food and drinking water for the people who live around it.

Healthy ecosystems that provide people with essential natural goods and services often overlap with regions rich in biological diversity, underscoring that conserving one also protects the other, according to a new study.

Shiny amber jewelry and a mucky Florida swamp have given scientists a window into an ancient ecosystem that could be anywhere from 15 million to 130 million years old.

In research to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists in Chicago (July 7-11, 2007), scientists will show that elevated CO2 may negatively impact the relationship between some plants and insects. Elevated CO2 is considered to be a serious catalyst of global change.

The World Bank Board of Executive Directors has approved on June 12 a Global Environment Facility (GEF) Trust Fund grant of US$ 6.15 million, to support the Jordanian government's efforts in ecosystem management.

Though the dense humid forests of Central Africa have been regarded as among the most pristine on Earth, the expansion of industrial logging and the accompanying proliferation of road density are threatening the future of this important ecosystem.