As I learned during an ecology lab in college, biodiversity assessment is currently the most effective and accepted method of measuring the health of rivers and streams. As I also learned during that ...

If you liked this story, share it with other people. In choosing sites to target for protection, conservationists typically look for healthy ecosystems with high biodiversity — places with a great ...

The carabid ground beetles of the family Carabidae are as common as they come. These little nocturnal hunters are found in almost any terrestrial habitat on the planet. To some, they’re simply pests — ...

We’ve become accustomed to using mechanical devices to evaluate our environments. However, there are natural alternatives to strictly instrumental measures of environmental health. Many organisms are ...

Sponges are filter feeders that live on particulate matter -- but they can also ingest microscopic fragments of plastics and other pollutants of anthropogenic origin. They can therefore serve as ...

With an estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic waste escaping to our oceans each year, plastic pollution adversely affects the environment, climate, and even our health. Many plastic products ...

Unfortunately, this book can't be printed from the OpenBook. If you need to print pages from this book, we recommend downloading it as a PDF. Visit NAP.edu/10766 to get more information about this ...

With an estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic waste escaping to our oceans each year, plastic pollution adversely affects the environment, climate, and even our health. Many plastic products ...