Recent strengthening of eastern Pacific ENSO in the last millennium paleorecord.

August 27, 2026| Source: Science (New York, N.Y.)

The Pacific El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) generates climate extremes that endanger ecosystems, infrastructure, and human well-being worldwide. The response of this system to climate warming is poorly constrained, due both to data scarcity and uncertainties in climate models. The geochemistry of Galápagos coral skeletons across the past millennium reveals a large recent increase in interannual variability of sea surface temperature in the eastern equatorial Pacific compared to existing paleorecords that exceeds simulated natural variability. This increase parallels rising global temperature and results from stronger El Niño events. Central Pacific coral data also show increased variability, although less distinctly than in the Galápagos. Our results provide long-term context for understanding ENSO variability trends, with troubling implications for climate extremes.

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Nutrient legacies from elephant megacarcasses create coldspots of biodiversity and hotspots of ecosystem processes.

Terrestrial megafauna (animals >1,000 kg) have substantial impacts on ecosystems while alive; yet, we know little about the impacts of these ecosystem engineers after they die. Like whale carcasses in the ocean, terrestrial megacarcasses may leave ecological legacies via the nutrient pulses they create on the landscape. Here, we investigated the impact of elephant megacarcasses on savanna ecosystems in Kruger National Park, South Africa. To determine how elephant carcasses affect below- and a

EnvironmentOctober 20, 2026

Maternal ranging strategies facilitate offspring social play at energetic cost in the most solitary ape.

In most vertebrates, social play among peers is considered essential for behavioral development. Yet in solitary species bearing single offspring, opportunities for social play are inherently scarce. Whether mothers of such species actively facilitate play opportunities for their offspring, and at what cost, remains unknown. We used 15 y of behavioral and movement data (∼32,600 observation hours) from 31 wild Bornean orangutan ( Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii ) mother-offspring pairs to test whet

EnvironmentOctober 20, 2026

Evolution shapes ecosystem resilience through spatial self-organization.

Drylands are globally widespread and ecologically important but vulnerable to climate change. Many exhibit spatially self-organized vegetation patterns that enhance resilience by enabling vegetation to reorganize their patterns under drying, thereby optimizing water use and maintaining productivity. Plants can also undergo evolution in response to environmental change. Although both spatial self-organization and rapid evolution are fundamental mechanisms of resilience, their interaction remains

EnvironmentOctober 15, 2026

Nearly half of reef-building corals face elevated relative risk of extinction.

Coral reefs are diverse marine ecosystems that provide ecological functions and economic and social benefits across over 100 tropical countries. Warming driven by climate change is a primary threat to coral reefs and is increasing the frequency of global coral bleaching events. Here we reassessed the IUCN Red List status of 892 reef-building coral species, first assessed in 2008 1 . Because species-level population trends are unavailable for most reef-building corals, population reductions were

EnvironmentOctober 13, 2026

Continuous UV irradiation played an inconclusive role in selecting the canonical genetic alphabet.

An abundance of heterocyclic molecules analogous to canonical nucleobases (i.e., adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil) used as the genetic alphabet in DNA and RNA could have been present in various prebiotic environments on early Earth. However, extant biology generally uses the canonical nucleobases and nucleosides as the genetic alphabet, and not any number of possible noncanonical counterparts. Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation was likely abundant on the surface of the early Earth and h