Tambarikosy

This post was originally published under the title  "Water Worlds"  in the December 2016 issue of  The Biologist , the Royal Society of Biology's magazine. If you're a member of the RSB you can also view the  article on their website here . Tropical rainforests are known for being full of life. Whether you're captivated by the calls of colourful birds, mesmerised by hypnotically patterned cats, or fascinated by the apparently infinite variety of invertebrate life, you still have to acknowledge that what makes a rainforest are the plants. A forest is by definition a collection of trees, but there is a whole lot more to plant life in a rainforest. Coating every surface, including the trees themselves, are more plants. Some of these we would as surface-covering vegetation in temperate environments as well, like the mosses and liverworts that coat stone walls or the dandelions that poke their sunny faces out between cracks in the concrete. However, there are ...

Five years ago today, I set off on one of the biggest adventures of my life. Granted, I'm only 23 and so my life hasn't been particularly long yet and though five years seems an age ago to me, I know it's not really that long ago. To be fair, I haven't even been on that many adventures to compare it with. Regardless... Forest S17. The fragments of Sainte Luce's once bountiful littoral forest are now small from slash and burn agriculture as well as logging. They are numbered S(n), which facilitates their management and conservation.

The grey wolf ( Canis lupus ) is one of the Northern Hemisphere’s most iconic carnivores. However, in a matter of centuries, the grey wolf has been exterminated from at least a third of its former range [1] . Until 2004, wolves remained listed as “Vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List for Endangered Species [1] . The grey wolf is now making an unexpected comeback in North America and Europe [2–4] . A proposal to strip the grey wolf of the protection from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) recently sparked debate, leading to an independent review of the species’ situation in North America [5] . Despite the recovery wolves are making, retracting their protected status could reverse this situation once again [5] . What’s more, a mere rise in numbers may not suffice to ensure the future of the species, as extreme population reduction and fragmentation come with less apparent, genetic consequences as discussed below [6–8] . Additionally, as an apex predator, a great deal of controversy...