Wetlands perform many essential ecosystem services—carbon storage, flood control, maintenance of biodiversity, fish production, and aquifer recharge, among others—services that have increasingly important global consequences. Like biodiversity hotspots and frontier forests, the world’s largest wetlands are now mapped and described by an international team of scientists, highlighting their conservation importance at the global scale. We explore current understanding of some ecosystem services wetlands provide.

The axolotl, a salamander that retains unique evolutionary features and is a darling of biologists because it can regenerate limbs, faces adversity on two fronts.

Terrestrial wetland emissions are the largest single source of the greenhouse gas methane. Northern high-latitude wetlands contribute significantly to the overall methane emissions from wetlands, but the relative source distribution between tropical and high-latitude wetlands remains uncertain.

The modern story of the Iraqi Marshlands begins tragically - with intentional environmental destruction used as a political weapon - but today is one of miraculous renewal, international cooperation and hope. Once at the brink of total collapse, the area has been restored to a point where it will soon be proposed as a UN World Heritage Site.

Crossing through ten countries and draining the territory of 19 countries, the Danube is the most international river in the world. In addition to the 83 million people living in the river basin, the Danube is home to globally important species of flora and fauna.

The Keoladeo National Park (KNP), better known as the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, is one of the world