Lichens are not a single organism — they are a stable symbiosis between fungi and photosynthetic partners (algae or cyanobacteria). The fungus provides structur…

About 1.5 trillion tonnes of organic carbon are stored in Arctic permafrost — roughly twice the carbon currently in the atmosphere. As permafrost thaws, microbi…

r/K selection theory describes two ends of a reproductive spectrum. r-strategists produce many offspring with little parental investment (most die young); K-str…

Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" (1968): shared resources are overexploited because each user captures the full benefit of their use while sharing the costs wi…

MacArthur and Wilson's The Theory of Island Biogeography (1967): species richness on an island is a function of island size (larger = more species) and isolatio…

Rewilding reverses the intuition behind conservation. Classical conservation: protect what's left. Rewilding: restore what was lost, then let ecological process…

Ecological succession is the process by which a community changes over time toward a stable end state (the "climax community"). Pioneer species colonize disturb…

Roughly 90% of plant species form symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi. The fungal hyphae extend the plant's effective root surface area by orders of…

Climate tipping points are thresholds beyond which a system self-reinforces in a new direction. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Amazon rainforest, the Atlanti…

A keystone species has an outsized effect on its ecosystem relative to its biomass. Remove it and the ecosystem transforms. Sea otters are the classic example.…