Seed dispersal disruption limits tropical forest regrowth

Significance Animal declines diminish the ecological roles they play in ecosystems. In the tropics, where regrowing forests can accumulate vast amounts of carbon, most trees rely on animals for seed dispersal—a key process in forest regeneration. However, whether disruption of seed dispersal by animals negatively impacts forest carbon recovery remains unclear. Evaluating this prediction using data from thousands of tropical sites, we show that forest carbon accumulation is strongly reduced where seed dispersal is disrupted. This finding highlights a critical but overlooked link between biodiversity loss and climate change, revealing how unmitigated animal declines undermine the ability of forest carbon to recover after disturbance and emphasizing the need to incorporate animal biodiversity into climate mitigation strategies.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

• Publication date

  2025-07-24

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1073/pnas.2500951122PMID 40705429PMCID 12318199
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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