More than half of life on Earth experiencing unprecedented conditions

There is almost no ecosystem on Earth left untouched by human activity, according to new research that suggests widespread change from pollution, wildlife extinctions and disruption to plant life is pushing the planet into uncharted territory.

“We have shifted the system to conditions that we have not seen before,” says Alejandro Ordonez at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Ordonez and his colleagues have mapped the land’s exposure to three key drivers of ecosystem “novelty”…