Tropical forests can't recover naturally without fruit-eating birds

New research from the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich illustrates a critical barrier to natural regeneration of tropical forests. Their models -- from ground-based data gathered in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil -- show that when wild tropical birds move freely across forest landscapes, they can increase the carbon storage of regenerating tropical forests by up to 38 percent.

Based on current data, this study advances the research from previous ground studies conducted by the authors in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. The forest is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world, but it is also one of the most fragmented with only 12 percent of the original forest remaining and in small areas.

"By identifying the thresholds of forest cover in the surrounding landscape that allow seed dispersal, we can identify areas where natural regeneration is possible, as well as areas where we need to actively plant trees, allowing us to maximize the cost-effectiveness of forest restoration," says Danielle Ramos, a co-author of the paper affiliated with the University of Exeter, UK and Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, São Paulo, Brazil.

Nature Trees Seeds Forest Rainforests Ecology Ecosystems

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