In a ground breaking study, an international team of 21 scientists led by Sean Hoban, Ph.D., Conservation Biologist at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, evaluated five genera spanning the plant tree of life (Hibiscus, Magnolia, Pseudophoenix, Quercus and Zamia) to understand how much genetic diversity currently exists in collections in botanical gardens and arboreta worldwide.

A new way of looking at marine evolution over the past 540 million years has shown that levels of biodiversity in our oceans have remained fairly constant, rather than increasing continuously over the last 200 million years, as scientists previously thought.

Do biodiversity losses aggravate transmission of infectious diseases spread by animals to humans? The jury is still out but several scientists say there is a "biodiversity dilution effect" in which declining biodiversity results in increased infectious-disease transmission.

Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve is one of China's most popular tourist attractions, drawing more than five million visitors per year to the sparsely populated mountains of north-western Sichuan. The reserve has been home to farmer-herders for thousands of years, but to conserve the biodiversity and scenic quality of the reserve, park policies prohibit residents from farming, herding and wood cutting.

Sovereign nations typically measure economic success in terms of GDP (income) but this approach is risky as it fails to track and measure the impact of this on nature. Inclusive wealth, on the other hand captures financial and produced capital, but also the skills in our workforce (human capital), the cohesion in our society (social capital) and the value of our environment (natural capital).

In these unusual and tragic times, I am indeed grateful that we are able to connect virtually to continue the business of environmental governance. While the efforts of all your capitals are correctly focused on preventing human suffering, as parts of the world move slowly towards recovery, the environmental agenda remains one of our most powerful insurance policies in preventing future global pandemics like COVID-19.

And against the backdrop of threatened lives, crippled businesses and damaged economies, the UN chief warned the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are also under threat.

Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity Serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Advance text)

The office space company has filed for an initial public offering, here are five things you need to know about one of the year's hottest IPOs

Spinout founders, investors and insiders give their tips on turning academic research into successful businesses

Researchers from the venture capital firm Octopus Ventures gave much of the credit to QUBIS, the university's dedicated commercialisation arm

David Murray-Hundley, our resident Grumpy Entrepreneur, on the eight things for startups to consider if the bubble bursts