Fiona Llewellyn Beard is a PhD candidate in the Department of Earth Sciences, where she studies salt marshes and how they store huge amounts of carbon. Here, she tells us about how a childhood love of mud pies led to her current research, her love of the outdoors, and how everything in the environment is interconnected. 

Plans to save biodiversity must take into account the social impacts of conservation if they are to succeed, say University of Cambridge researchers.

Forests burn, glaciers melt and one million species face extinction. Can we humans save the planet from ourselves? Here, Sir David Attenborough speaks to us about the climate crisis and his hopes for the future. His words begin our new focus on Sustainable Earth, looking at how we transition to a carbon zero future, protect the planet's resources, reduce waste and build resilience.

Largest study yet to compare protected with “matched” unprotected land finds “significantly higher” increases in human pressure – primarily through agriculture – in protected areas across the tropics.

Dr Alexis Braun is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Genetics. Here, she tells us about the importance of mentors, how her research might aid in conservation efforts, and how growing up in a First Nations community in Canada spurred her interest in biology. 

Researchers have shown how millions of years of climate change affected the range and habitat of modern birds, suggesting that many groups of tropical birds may be relatively recent arrivals in their equatorial homes.

A group of UK and Peruvian researchers have carried out the first detailed study of how rural communities interact with peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon, a landscape that is one of the world’s largest stores of carbon.

A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Manta Trust has successfully scanned a pregnant wild reef manta ray underwater to obtain clear ultrasound images of her foetus, using the world’s first contactless underwater ultrasound scanner.

Research reveals rifts within global movement – from economic approaches to protected areas – while confirming support for aims underpinning it. 

New research reveals that biodiversity ‘hotspots’ in the tropics produced new species at faster rates over the last 25 million years, but those in temperate regions are instead full of migrant species that likely sought refuge from shifting and cooling climates.