Elephant and forest

As go the elephants, so go the trees. That’s the message of a new study published in the May 2013 issue of Forest Ecology and Management that found more than a dozen elephant-dependent tree species suffered catastrophic population declines in new plant growths after forest elephants were nearly extirpated from their ecosystems. The fruit-bearing trees all rely on forest elephants as their primary means of seed distribution, a process known as megafaunal dispersal syndrome.

-- John R. Platt

The number of African forest elephants has "declined by 62% in 10 years."

See also Gomphotheres of the Rambunctious Garden