Research articles

The economy and banks in the euro area contribute and are exposed to nature-related risks, according to an analysis of data on 2500 banks’ dependence and impact on biodiversity, ecosystem degradation, and climate change.

Microbial communities, exposed to early Earth-like conditions in a modern microbialite reef, change cyclically due to seasonal environmental variations, implying evolved metabolic processes in microbialites over time, based on multiple chemical, physical, and biological analyses.

Major microbial methane filter in Arctic soils is comprised of obligate methanotrophs within Methylobacter based on 621 datasets from intact permafrost soils across the pan Arctic.

Dinosaurs promoted open habitats in the Late Cretaceous, and their extinction could have led to a radical reorganization of the landscape and ecosystem structure at the beginning of the Paleogene, according to sedimentology, biostratigraphy, and geochemistry data from western North America.

Localised significant changes in nannofossil assemblage composition took place 200 kyr before the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, according to microfossil analysis from the high-latitude southwest Pacific Ocean.

Indigenous territory extent in the Amazon biome can reduce the incidence of fire-related and zoonotic/vector-borne diseases, but only in certain contexts, according to an analysis of disease incidence data from the region.

Mangrove soil organic matter pools across different geomorphic settings vary more strongly than across all terrestrial biomes, according to soil core analysis of multiple mangrove geomorphic settings.

Crop production declines more sharply in the Sudanian and Sudano-Sahelian zones of Burkina Faso under warming of 1.5 °C and 3.5 °C, but relative welfare losses are greater for households in the Sahelian zone, according to an analysis of future model projections

Equatorial stratospheric aerosol injection may mitigate north drought-south flood by reducing temperature gradients and altering circulation, which increases precipitation and runoff in northern China while reducing them in the south, according to analysis of the Norwegian Earth system model and volcanic data.

The recent decline in glacier health and reduced runoff generation in the Northwestern Pamirs is primarily driven by substantially lower snowfall and snow depth since 2018, according to land-surface model reconstructions from 1999–2023 combining in-situ observations, climate reanalysis, and remote sensing data.

Measurable titanium isotope fractionation occurred during melt extraction from planetary mantle demonstrating titanium isotopes can serve as a tracer for oxygen fugacity of planetary mantle reservoirs, according to an analysis of ureilites, diogenites, shergottites, chassignite, and nakhlites.

Drylands continue to expand and experience increasingly harsh conditions even as carbon dioxide emissions decline, but negative emissions may be essential to mitigating aridity, albeit on a longer timescale, according to an analysis of idealized emissions-driven climate model simulations.

Land use conversion, particularly to croplands, in subtropical forests decreases the microbial diversity and functional potential for solubilization and mineralization involved in the soil phosphorus cycling, according to metagenomics analysis combined with culturing and amplicon sequencing.

Within three hours after sandy soil rewetting, redox reactions mediated by iron and manganese, combined with the generation of reactive oxygen species, induce substantial abiotic release of carbon dioxide, representing 95.5% of total emissions via direct and indirect mechanisms.

Logging and agricultural conversions led to the loss of 46% of montane forests in Kenya’s Central Highlands between 1910 and 1975, while legacies of postcolonial resettlement resulted in a further 20% loss between 1975 and 2024, according to historical maps, satellite imagery, and resettlement datasets.

Heathland ecosystems are resistant to extreme wildfires due to the differing drivers of low fuel moisture across all fuel types, but extreme heatwaves can cause homogenously low moisture content across fuels, causing extreme fire behavior, according to field measurement analysis of Calluna vulgaris and organic soil moisture content across the UK.

The energy transfer rate from a two-dimensional subaerial landslide to the tsunami produced may be limited to a value of about 70 % in the far field, according to Navier-Stokes simulations.

In China, the 2021 Henan flood event led to an increase in citizen demands for drainage, neighborhood safety, and flood prevention, calling for concrete and localized state-led adaptation, according to an analysis combining a statistical approach and a neural topic modeling approach.

Survey frequency, timing, and spatial resolution all impact uncertainty in zooplankton observations, according to an analysis of long-term zooplankton data from the Western Antarctic Peninsula.

Independent smallholder farmers without exclusive contracts with specific mills were underrepresented at certified palm oil mills, and they contributed one-third of regional oil palm production, according to an analysis using a conceptual model of market participation and palm oil data.