News & Updates

As the world churns — a history of ecosystem engineering in the oceans

August 11, 2025
The murky world at the bottom of the oceans is now a little clearer, thanks to a new study that tracks the evolution of marine sediment layers across hundreds of millions of ...
Bacterial and archaeal community structure and metabolism in wood microbiome

YIBS Faculty Affiliates help uncover a hidden trillion-strong microbial world inside trees

August 6, 2025
A team of researchers, including several Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (YIBS) faculty affiliates, has uncovered a vast and previously unknown world living inside the...
Madrean tropical night lizard, El Cielo Biosphere Reserve, municipality of Gómez Farías, Tamaulipas, Mexico (24 May 2005).  (Photo © William L. Farr, Licensed through Creative Commons BY-SA-4.0)

Blast radius survivors: The lizards that endured the cataclysmic asteroid strike

July 11, 2025
An asteroid strike 66 million years ago caused a mass extinction that wiped out 75% of Earth’s animal species, including all non-avian dinosaurs. But “night” lizards survived...
A life reconstruction of the specimen of Citipati, a dinosaur closely related to birds, analyzed with an x-ray cutaway of the specimen’s wrist. The small and rounded pisiform is highlighted in blue. Credit: Henry S. Sharpe/University of Alberta

This wrist’s twist is its link between dinosaurs and birds

July 9, 2025
The evolutionary path from dinosaurs to birds included the development of a tiny wrist bone that ultimately proved crucial for stabilizing wings in flight. A new study...
Close-up of a male greater sage-grouse ‘strut’ display

Study led by YIBS Faculty Affiliate Richard Prum's lab reveals mating tip for bird species: You should be dancing

May 30, 2025
When it comes to impressing the ladies, greater sage-grouse males know that smooth dance moves trump combative posturing. Indeed, new Yale research into these prairie-...
A cactus wren

Even birds can’t outfly climate change

May 28, 2025
As rising global temperatures alter ecosystems worldwide, animal species usually have two choices: adapt to changing local conditions or flee to a cooler clime. Ecologists...
Thomas Near and others have discovered two darter species — the Gurley Darter and the Birmingham Darter — in the Mobile River system in central Alabama.

YIBS Faculty Affiliate Thomas Near and others find two new fish species in Alabama streams — and they’re already imperiled

April 29, 2025
Yale researchers have discovered two new species of darter — small, colorful freshwater fishes — inhabiting short stretches of creeks and streams in central Alabama.  And...

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