Biodiversity, Conservation & Ecosystems

With an unparalleled network of environmental monitoring stations, research field sites and cyber infrastructure, UArizona pioneers fundamental and use-inspired ecosystem science to help save species and conserve the lands, forests and wildlife of the western U.S. and beyond.

Scientists are seeing the beginnings of a sudden, disruptive rearrangement of the world’s flora.

Biodiversity, Conservation & Ecosystems

Will fire change Arizona's desert ecosystem forever? Researcher studies regrowth after Bighorn Fire

A University of Arizona researcher is studying how fire affects the Sonoran Desert to help our rural/urban interface communities from increasing fire dangers in the future.

High school playgrounds turning green thanks to Glasgow University

A PROJECT inspired by an American university to plant the seeds of climate awareness and action through gardening is branching out across Glasgow high schools.

Biodiversity, Conservation & Ecosystems

Park land scorched by Bighorn Fire could offer clues to emerging desert threat

On a rocky foothill about a mile from the main road at Catalina State Park, desert ecologist Ben Wilder steps carefully around fresh signs of life in a scorched landscape.

Biodiversity, Conservation & Ecosystems

As Climate Warms, a Rearrangement of World’s Plant Life Looms

Previous periods of rapid warming millions of years ago drastically altered plants and forests on Earth. Now, scientists see the beginnings of a more sudden, disruptive rearrangement of the world’s flora — a trend that will intensify if greenhouse gas emissions are not reined in.

Biodiversity, Conservation & Ecosystems

Irregular ‘side blooms’ on saguaros signify a parched desert

Nestled within the Tucson Mountain District, Saguaro National Park’s main attraction has been exhibiting a strange phenomenon of “side blooms” well beyond their peak blooming season. The flowering event, which occurs from mid-April to early June, has exhibited more buds dispersed along saguaros’ trunks, with smaller flowers and fruits.