NYC

Study Finds Rainforests Bounce Back Much Quicker than Expected

Text and image from this article in the New York Times:

Scientists once thought it would take a century or more for animals to return to deforested land in the tropics. Now, new research has found ecosystems can recover in mere decades. “It’s been a huge surprise for all of us,” said Timo Metz, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, and first author of the study, published in the journal Nature. “None of us expected it to be so impressive and so quick.” Rainforests have been disappearing at an alarming pace for at least a century, and millions of acres a year are still burned or cut down for logging, farming or ranching, or are lost to wildfires. In 2024, the rate of loss was as fast as 18 soccer fields per minute, adding up to an area nearly the size of Panama. At the same time, hundreds of millions of acres of formerly deforested land are thought to be regrowing. Scientists have generally found that it takes more than a century for trees and plants to fully resemble the old, original pristine forest. It was long assumed that animals would take just as long to return. The new study found that’s not necessarily the case. “The expectation was that the animals would need the forest to come first,” Dr. Metz said. “But surprisingly, many of the animals recover much more quickly than the trees.”

Anton Seder. Die Pflanze in Kunst und Gewerbe /The Plant in Art and Industry. vol.2. ca. 1887-89. The apotheosis of the root vegetable.

From the article:

Their metrics showed that — in addition to providing over 1.7 billion meals to 40 million people in need globally — food banks also diverted an estimated 1.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. By intercepting unspoiled food destined for the landfill, and redistributing food from local farms and wholesale produce markets, the 2023 report offered evidence that community-led solutions to addressing global hunger can also help protect the globe itself.  “Nearly a third of the world’s food is lost or wasted at the post-harvest, retail, and consumer levels, never reaching the people who need it,” the GFN team wrote in the report. “Food loss and waste proves costly for producers, takes up space in landfills, and emits harmful greenhouse gases, intensifying climate change.”

Reading this was one of those "oh duh!" moments for me. Despite being aware that food systems and food waste are major sources of emissions, I had mentally placed food banks in a "addressing non environmental problems" category. But of course, food banks make our food system more efficient and less wasteful by making the most out of the food we have already produced.

Oilbirds or Guácharos (Steatornis caripensis), family Steatornithidae, order Steatornithiformes, Pacto, Ecuador

These birds used to be included in the order Caprimulgiformes, along with the nightjars, but were separated into their own order in 2010. (They are closely related to the nightjars.)

These nocturnal birds usually nest in colonies in caves.

Oilbirds feed on the fruits of oil palms and laurels.

They are able to navigate at night using echo-location.

Ghost Fungus (Omphalotus nidiformis), GLOWING IN THE DARK!!!, family Omphalotaceae, Tasmania, Australia

As you may have noticed, this fungus is bioluminescent.

The normal coloring is whitish or brown.

Primarily distributed in southern Australia and Tasmania, but has occasionally been found elsewhere.

Grows on dead wood.