Zuzana Burivalova, a tropical forest ecologist who uses sound to understand the health of forests globally, was recently named the winner of the 2026 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award. The award is an initiative of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). “Receiving this award feels really humbling, and also special, maybe particularly so during times that are challenging for work in environmental issues and conservation,” Burivalova told Mongabay by email. “I see getting an award like this to also mean taking the responsibility for doing as much as I can for biodiversity conservation in the years to come.” An associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, U.S., and the principal investigator of the Sound Forest Lab, Burivalova has worked in forests across the world, including Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Peru, Madagascar, and Ecuador. Within those forests, Burivalova and her colleagues have placed remote audio recorders, which allow them to listen to mammals, birds, amphibians, and insects, all day long, all year round. The sound data offer a baseline of what life currently sounds like inside those forests. They also provide valuable information to understand what’s changing over time. Burivalova has collaborated with Mongabay on the Conservation Effectiveness platform that examines how well (or not) various conservation strategies work. “It’s a huge encouragement to know that work on biodiversity conservation in tropical forests and beyond is seen as important,” Burivalova said. “It makes me feel proud of our lab.” Founder and chair…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A chance sighting of photos on Instagram, then a five-day expedition, including a last-minute, late-night detour in a Colombian rainforest — that’s what it took for researchers to confirm a new-to-science species of giant water lily. The plant has such large leaves the researchers could also spot it from space, according to a new study. The saga started in 2021, when giant-water-lily expert Carlos Magdalena came across photos posted by Jeremiah Harris on Instagram. In the photos, Harris, who runs a carnivorous-plant nursery in the U.S., was swimming next to giant water lily leaves in Colombia’s Inírida River. Harris had labelled the plant a wild individual of Victoria amazonica, but Magdalena knew that no known species of South American giant water lilies from the genus Victoria had previously been reported from the Orinoco Basin, of which the Inírida River is a tributary. “So the moment I saw the picture on Instagram with a geolocation on Inírida I realized it was remarkable,” Magdalena, a botanical and scientific research horticulturist at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, U.K., told Mongabay by email. Intrigued, Magdalena turned to satellite imagery. Giant water lilies have massive, circular leaves, more than 3 meters (10 feet) in diameter, and Magdalena spotted several Victoria floating pads in the Inírida and nearby lakes. This confirmed there were more Victoria water lilies in that river system. Magdalena then formed a team with researchers, as well as with Nilo Rodríguez, Jaime Hernández, and Gustavo Melo, members of the Río Atabapo, Caranacoa-Yurí-Laguna Morocoto, and…This article was originally published on Mongabay