Beavers and their dams, once common in small streams throughout Eurasia and North America, are returning to their original range. Beaver dams are special habitats in the aquatic-terrestrial interface,...

Newswise — For rivers flowing from the roof of the world, the flow of the water itself—not its warmth—determines which creatures can survive. A new study of the Yarlung Tsangpo Basin on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau reveals that hydrodynamic intensity, measured as specific stream power, is the primary driver of macroinvertebrate biodiversity and community assembly in these high-altitude alpine rivers. The findings overturn the prevailing assumption that rising water temperatures from glacial melt are the main factor reshaping aquatic life in glacier-fed systems. Climate change is driving rapid glacier loss across the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau—often called the Third Pole—with profound consequences for the rivers that originate there. Most existing research, conducted primarily in temperate and Arctic regions, has pointed to water temperature as the dominant control on macroinvertebrate communities, showing that richness increases as temperature rises. However, these thermal-centric models have failed to explain biodiversity patterns in the extreme topographic and hydrologic gradients of high-altitude tropical and subtropical alpine rivers. Based on these challenges, there is an urgent need to investigate what truly shapes aquatic communities in the world’s highest river systems. A team of researchers from Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Peking University published (DOI: 10.1016/j.ese.2026.100752) their findings...

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Aquatic invertebrates are exceptionally nutrient dense, supplying the equivalent annual vitamin B12 and selenium requirements for over 5 billion people.

Newswise — For rivers flowing from the roof of the world, the flow of the water itself—not its warmth—determines which creatures can survive. A new study of the Yarlung Tsangpo Basin on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau reveals that hydrodynamic intensity, measured as specific stream power, is the primary driver of macroinvertebrate biodiversity and community assembly in these high-altitude alpine rivers. The findings overturn the prevailing assumption that rising water temperatures from glacial melt are the main factor reshaping aquatic life in glacier-fed systems. Climate change is driving rapid glacier loss across the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau—often called the Third Pole—with profound consequences for the rivers that originate there. Most existing research, conducted primarily in temperate and Arctic regions, has pointed to water temperature as the dominant control on macroinvertebrate communities, showing that richness increases as temperature rises. However, these thermal-centric models have failed to explain biodiversity patterns in the extreme topographic and hydrologic gradients of high-altitude tropical and subtropical alpine rivers. Based on these challenges, there is an urgent need to investigate what truly shapes aquatic communities in the world’s highest river systems. A team of researchers from Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Peking University published (DOI: 10.1016/j.ese.2026.100752) their findings...

Freshwater ecosystems in Scotland are increasingly threatened by multiple interacting stressors, including pollution, hydrological alteration, land use change, and climate–driven pressures. Scotland′s...