Coralline red algae have existed for 130 million years, in other words since the Cretaceous Period, the time of the dinosaurs. At least this was the established view of palaeontologists all over the world until now. However, this classification will now have to be revised after fossils discovered by...
The earliest predators appeared on Earth 480 million years ago – and they even had teeth which were capable of repairing themselves. A team of palaeontologists led by Bryan Shirley and Madleen Grohganz from the Chair for Palaeoenviromental Research at FAU have been able to discover more about how th...
The extinction of the dinosaurs was not the first clear indication that changes in the environment and the climate have considerable effects on the biosphere. Smaller organisms, for example belemnites, similar to the squid of today, reacted to climate change in a somewhat less spectacular manner – n...
Current global warming has far-reaching ecological consequences, also for the Earth’s oceans. Many marine organisms are reacting by migrating towards the poles. Researchers at Geozentrum Nordbayern at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have now discovered that marine animals hav...
Information about current earthquakes is usually obtained using seismographic data. Scientists use this data to draw conclusions about the precise location of such natural events and the depth at which they occur. However, it is not possible to investigate which processes occur at the depth involved...
Significantly more species of plants are growing on mountain summits than 100 years ago. Several studies have already indicated that this is due to global warming. However, up to now, no direct link had been found between an increase in temperature and an increase in the number of plant species on a...
Mass extinctions throughout the history of the Earth have been well documented. Scientists believe that they occurred during a short period of time in geological terms. In a new study, FAU palaeobiologists and their research partners have now shown that signs that the largest mass extinction event i...
The World Climate Report, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), lays the foundation for global climate policy. The sixth assessment report is due to be published in 2022 and, like its predecessors, provide an extensive overview of the current state of research on climate...
