Mammals are limited by the availability of salt, and now researchers have shown that ants are too. In experiments in North, Central and South American, researchers have shown that plant-eating and omnivorous ants living more than 60 miles inland are more interested in salt than sugar, with the preference greater the farther they live from the coast. Carnivorous ants show no such preference.

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A “living fossil” tree species is helping a researcher understand how tropical forests responded to past climate change and how they may react to global warming in the future.

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Current models of global climate change predict warmer temperatures will increase the rate that bacteria and other microbes decompose soil organic matter, a scenario that pumps even more heat-trapping carbon into the atmosphere. But a new study shows that while the rate of decomposition increases for a brief period in response to warmer temperatures, elevated levels of decomposition don’t persist.

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Reducing the number of deer in forests and parks may unexpectedly reduce the number of reptiles, amphibians and insects in that area, new research suggests. A recent study found that higher deer activity is modifying forest ecosystems in unexpected ways. Out of several species of snakes, salamanders, and invertebrates studied, a greater diversity of animals were found in areas with deer populations than were in areas with no deer activity.

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Will climate change exceed life’s ability to respond? Biodiversity in a Warmer World, published in the Oct. 10, 2008, issue of the journal, Science, illustrates that cross-disciplinary research fostered by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama clearly informs this urgent debate.

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