Ecosystem Engineers

Featured Creature: Whale Fall

Caption: National Marine Sanctuaries via Wikimedia Commons

What creature feeds hundreds of deep-sea animals for a century, builds its own coral-reef-like ecosystem from scratch, and locks away tons of carbon in the process?

The Whale Fall!

I remember the first time I saw footage of a whale fall in a marine biology documentary and thinking it looked less like a death and more like a party. Hagfish were piled on top of each other so thick you couldn’t see the whale underneath them. An octopus was curled up inside what used to be a rib cage. I’d always pictured the deep ocean as a quiet, mostly empty place. It turns out that when something as massive as a whale dies and sinks, it becomes one of the busiest neighborhoods on the seafloor.

What Is a Whale Fall?

NOAA’s Undersea Research Program via Wikimedia Commons

Technically, the whale fall is not a creature in and of itself. But it behaves like one. It’s a living, breathing organism made up of hundreds of smaller ones, with its own life cycle, its own metabolism, and its own eventual death. In a way, the whale dies twice. Once as an animal, and once more, a century later, as an ecosystem.

A whale fall happens when a whale dies and its body “falls” to the deep ocean floor instead of washing ashore or being scavenged near the surface. The whale carcass is massive and holds a significant amount of stored energy, so it can take anywhere from several decades to well over a century to fully break down. In that time, an entire food web builds up around it, one that scientists have broken into four distinct stages. The fourth stage is still mostly a hypothesis, since no whale fall has been under observation long enough to confirm it firsthand.

Stage One: The Mobile Scavengers

The first stage belongs to the mobile scavengers, deep-sea animals that smell a carcass from a distance and swim in to feed. Hagfish, sleeper sharks, rattails, and various crustaceans arrive first and strip away the whale’s soft tissue and blubber. Hagfish in particular show up in huge numbers, sometimes hundreds at a time, packed onto the carcass like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Stage one lasts anywhere from a few months to around five years, depending on the size of the whale and how many scavengers find it.

Stage Two: The Enrichment Opportunists

Two octopuses resting inside the bones of a whale skeleton on the seafloor — Octopuses colonizing a whale carcass. National Marine Sanctuaries via Wikimedia Commons

Once the scavengers have picked the carcass mostly clean, the enrichment opportunists move in. These are smaller organisms, mainly polychaete worms, crustaceans, and mollusks, that colonize the leftover scraps and the sediment surrounding the bones that has been enriched by months of scavenger feeding. Octopuses, like the ones pictured above, are also known to take up temporary residence in the empty spaces a whale skeleton leaves behind. Stage two generally lasts up to two years.

Stage Three: The Sulfophilic Stage

The third stage is by far the longest, and it’s where whale fall becomes less of a meal and more of a unique ecosystem. Whale bones are dense with lipids, oils that make up more than half the weight of the skeleton. Bacteria break those lipids down through a process that releases hydrogen sulfide, and other bacteria then convert that sulfide into energy through chemosynthesis, essentially building food out of chemicals instead of sunlight. This sulfide-rich environment supports mussels, clams, limpets, and tube worms, along with communities of bacteria found almost nowhere else on Earth. Stage three lasts anywhere from a few decades up to a century, largely because whale bones are so much bigger, relative to the animals consuming them, than anything else on the sea floor.

A whale skeleton on the seafloor covered in bacterial mats and small invertebrates — C. Smith NOAA via Wikimedia Commons

Stage Four: The Reef Stage

Because the sulfophilic stage takes so long, scientists have only been able to hypothesize about what comes next. The idea is that once the bones are stripped of everything usable, the remaining mineral skeleton acts like an artificial reef, giving filter feeders a hard surface to settle on in an otherwise soft, silty environment. Researchers have gotten a glimpse of this by sinking cow bones instead of whale bones and watching what colonizes them, but there’s still no solid estimate for how long stage 4 might last.

The Biodiversity of a Whale Fall

Researchers using a submersible arm to collect samples from a whale fall skeleton on the seafloor — Sample collecting at a whale fall. NOAA’s Undersea Research Program via Wikimedia Commons

Across all four stages, a single whale skeleton can host well over a hundred species, more biodiversity than almost any other hard surface on the sea floor. Some of these species, including several types of Osedax, the so-called “bone-eating worms,” appear to have evolved specifically to exploit whale falls and are rarely found anywhere else. The isolation of these sites, scattered across the ocean floor and separated by huge distances, has made whale falls a kind of natural laboratory for studying how life adapts to extreme, resource-scarce environments.

Whale Falls and Carbon

Whale falls matter for climate reasons too. Whales are enormous carbon reservoirs simply by virtue of their size, and researchers estimate that a single great whale can hold the equivalent of around 33 tons of CO2 in its body over its lifetime. While a whale is alive, that carbon stays locked away. When it dies and sinks, rather than decomposing near the surface and releasing that carbon back into the atmosphere, the carcass carries it down to the seafloor, where it gets absorbed into deep-sea sediment and can stay out of circulation for centuries. Multiply that by the scale of historic whale populations, and it becomes clear why some researchers argue that protecting and rebuilding whale populations is itself a meaningful climate strategy, not just a conservation one.

How Climate Change Threatens Whale Falls

A sequence of images showing a juvenile humpback whale breaching out of the water — Humpback juvenile breach sequence. WolfmanSF via Wikimedia Commons

Whale falls depend on two things that climate change is putting at risk. The first is oxygen. As ocean temperatures rise, warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen, and oxygen minimum zones in the deep sea are expanding. Many of the species that colonize a whale fall, especially in the later stages, need enough oxygen to survive on the seafloor, so a shrinking oxygen supply could disrupt the whole succession process before it finishes playing out. The second is simpler: whale falls need whales. Several great whale populations, including the North Atlantic right whale, remain a fraction of their historic numbers because of centuries of commercial whaling. Fewer living whales means fewer whale falls, and fewer whale falls means less carbon making it to the deep sea and less food reaching an ecosystem that has come to depend on it.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about whale falls, especially that final reef stage, but everything we’ve learned so far points to the same conclusion. A whale’s death isn’t really an ending. It’s the start of a hundred-year ecosystem, and one more reason why keeping whales in the ocean matters for the whole planet, not just for the whales.

Melanie Davis-Kay is a soon-to-be graduate from Lesley College. She was a former volunteer at The Discovery Room inside the Museum of Science. She lives in Arlington, MA.

Featured Creature: Okapi

David Valentine via Unsplash

What animal was considered a cryptid for decades, has a foot-long black tongue, and looks like someone crossed a zebra with a giraffe?

**The Okapi! (Okapia johnstoni)**

Featured Creature: Okapi — David Valentine via Unsplash

When Bio4Climate intern Ellie Downey was three or four, her mom took her to a cryptozoology museum in Portland, Maine. She doesn’t remember much, but what does stick in her mind is the gift shop featuring items showing now-debunked creatures like the Bigfoot silhouette and the blurry Loch Ness monster image. Beside them, was a tiny figurine that looked half zebra, half giraffe that caught Ellie’s eye. She carried it around for the rest of the trip and called it by its name: Okapi. Why did people think the okapi was made up?

The okapi live in one of the strongest carbon-storing forests left on Earth, the Ituri rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, under a canopy so thick that sunlight barely reaches the ground. When you look at the okapi, it’s hard not to see the resemblance to its giraffe cousin. While the okapi and giraffe share some traits as they are both members of the family Giraffidae, the okapi evolved its own set of adaptations to survive in one of the densest, darkest forests on the planet. One of the most distinctive is its tongue.

Why Does the Okapi Have Such a Long Tongue?

The okapi’s prehensile tongue is dark, purplish-black, and runs about a foot long, long enough to clean its eyes, ears, and nostrils. Okapis are browsers, stripping leaves, buds, and shoots off branches rather than grazing on grass. Okapis wrap their tongues around foliage to pull into its mouth without relying on its teeth to do all the work. It helps them reach past thorns or into tight gaps in the tangled understory that its mouth alone couldn’t manage.

Scientists believe the tongue is dark-colored to protect it from sun damage. Because the tongue spends so much time extended outside the mouth while foraging, the dark coloring is thought to help protect it from sun damage.

Okapis browse across dozens of plant species, which helps keep the understory from being dominated by any one plant. Their feeding leaves “pruning lines” and trails through the vegetation that smaller animals use to get around. When they eat fruit, the seeds go with them and are dispersed in their droppings somewhere else in the forest, feeding the insects and fungi that keep the forest’s nutrient cycle running.

Okapis are sensitive to disturbance, which makes them perfect indicator species. A healthy okapi population is a good sign the surrounding forest is healthy too. When okapis start to disappear from an area, it’s often an early warning that something’s wrong.

Photo courtesy of Okapi Conservation Foundation.

How Much Forest Does a Single Okapi Cover?

Okapis are solitary and have large individual territories. Their feeding and seed dispersal is spread across wide stretches of the Ituri. Males space themselves out to defend their own territory, and young males usually roam farther from home than females. This means that a healthy okapi population supports a lot of land.

Unfortunately, the okapi is on the IUCN’s endangered list. The wild population is currently estimated at about 5,000–10,000, down from 40,000+ a few decades ago. Their numbers continue to trend down.

Artisanal mining is the single biggest threat to the okapi. A 2025 study attributed about 98 percent of the population loss since 2009 to small-scale mining operations that destroy habitat directly and bring roads, camps, and bushmeat hunting. Armed conflict in the region makes things even worse.

Fewer okapi means less browsing that keeps the understory balanced, less seed dispersal in new areas of forest, and less pruning of the lines and trails that keep the ecosystem cycling.

Okapi and the Larger Carbon Picture

Scientists are beginning to study the link between large plant-eating animals like the okapi and forest carbon storage. When big seed-dispersing animals get hunted out of a forest, some tree species, especially dense, slow-growing ones that store the most carbon, struggle to regenerate without something to carry their seeds away. Field studies have found this shrinks a forest’s carbon storage by about 2–12%, depending on the forest.

The okapi’s influence hasn’t been specifically studied yet, but it’s likely they play a similar role in the Ituri region. The Ituri is the world’s second-largest rainforest after the Amazon, and it’s one of the biggest carbon reservoirs. Researchers estimate that the Ituri has about 50 billion tons of carbon above ground, and even more in the soil underneath.

Sadly, the Ituri’s carbon sink is under heavy strain. In 2020, a study that tracked hundreds of forest plots across Africa found the Congo Basin carbon sink has been weakening for years and could flip into a net carbon source as soon as the mid-2030s if destructive factors like deforestation and climate stress continue unabated. A more recent study found that African tropical forests as a whole may have already crossed the line. Right now, the Congo Basin is still absorbing more carbon than it releases, but there’s no guarantee that will continue.

All Hope Is Not Lost

The good news is that there’s still a path forward for both the okapi and its habitat. Okapis carry high genetic diversity, which means the species has the ability to bring its numbers back if given the chance.

In late 2025, CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, voted to ban all international commercial trade in okapis. This doesn’t solve the mining risks, but it does eliminate one challenge.

The Okapi Wildlife Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that covers part of the Ituri, provides a safe home to more than 40% of the world’s remaining okapis. Groups like the Okapi Conservation Project, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation run anti-poaching patrols and community programs there, and often work directly with the Mbuti communities who have lived side-by-side with the okapi for generations.

Ellie Downey is a college student studying Literature and visual arts at Bennington College. She has worked primarily in the visual art sphere in the past, and is currently interning with a nearby city’s Public Arts and Culture department. In working with Biodiversity for a Liveable Climate writing Featured Creature articles, Ellie endeavours to combine her lifelong love of animals with her interest in writing.

Sources

Featured Creature: Wild Boar

Anastasiya Dalenka via Unsplash

What creature has a nose like a bloodhound, locks or releases carbon into the soil based on where it lives, and was caught on camera freeing one of its own from a trap?

**The wild boar! (Sus scrofa)**

Featured Creature: Wild Boar — Anastasiya Dalenka via Unsplash

This week, Bio4Climate intern Eleanor Downey, a student at Bennington College in Vermont, takes us on a deeper dive to meet the ancestors of a creature she’s been fascinated with since she was little. Her love of pigs led her to investigate the wild boar and its relationship to the ecosystems where it lives.

Smart, Social, and Sympathetic

Wild boars live in sounders, tight-knit groups that are built around a sow and her litter. The adult males are usually solitary, except during breeding seasons. As nocturnal creatures, scientists have had a harder time studying them in the wild, but what they have learned is pretty cool!

In 2021, researchers recorded what is probably the first documented case of same-species rescue behavior by a wild boar. An adult female worked the wooden locking mechanism of a cage trap to free two juveniles caught inside. This kind of rescue behavior has only been documented in a few species. The female reportedly showed signs of distress while she worked, which has researchers wondering if empathy was part of what drove her.

Boars communicate through vocalizations, body gestures, and snout nudges. They learn quickly and have adapted to living near humans by shifting their schedules to avoid them, settling into smaller territories, and not reacting to nearby disturbances.

Powerful Sense of Smell

The wild boar’s nose is built for detection. It carries a number of olfactory receptor genes, traits that haven’t been bred out even in their domesticated pig descendants. Boars depend on their strong sense of smell for almost everything they do, whether it’s finding food, recognizing family members, or sensing potential mates. It’s also what makes them so good at finding truffles buried up to three feet underground, fungi that no other creature except a few dog breeds can find. Because the truffles are buried at that depth, boars are an important way that their spores travel through a forest at all, carried off in droppings after a good night of foraging.

The Dirt on Wild Boars

In their native habitat across Europe and Asia, wild boars shape grasslands like bison. As they root in the ground for food, they disturb topsoil, aerate it, and open up microhabitats where new seeds can take hold.

Their rooting impacts carbon in the soil, but in different ways depending on whether they’re in their native ranges or not. As they dig, boars mix organic matter from the forest floor with the mineral soil underneath. One 2021 study found this activity functions to redistribute carbon within the soil instead of releasing it, making the buried carbon more stable over time. Another study showed that boars living and rooting outside their native ranges disturb tens of thousands of square kilometers of soil and release millions of metric tonnes of CO2 a year. Regardless of location, it is clear that wild boars intentionally mix forest soils at scale. If it happens in their native landscapes, the soil has evolved to benefit from the disturbance. In other places, the impact is very different.

Are Boars an Invasive Species or Not? It Depends

Outside their native area, wild boars can cause problems. They have big appetites and their numbers grow quickly, making them invasive in a lot of places they’ve expanded to. One study using trail camera surveys found 26 percent less biodiversity in areas with wild boars than in areas without them. They eat just about anything that fits in their mouths. Add that to all the digging they do, and they can cause real damage. They can reshape wetlands, changing the natural topography, damaging flood plains, and altering how water flows and pools.

One of the most interesting outcomes of my exploration into boars is that the same traits that make wild boars important for climate resilience in their native habitats make them destructive elsewhere. The same animals showing the same behaviors have a completely different climate impact depending upon where they live.

Sources

Masilkova, M., Ježek, M., Silovský, V., Faltusová, M., Rohla, J., Kušta, T., & Burda, H. “Observation of rescue behaviour in wild boar (Sus scrofa).” Scientific Reports, 11, 16217 (2021)
Allwin, B., Swaminathan, R., Mohanraj, A., Suhas, G. N., Vedaminckam, S., & Kumar, M. “The Wild Pig (Sus scrofa) Behavior – A Retrospective Study.” Journal of Veterinary Science & Technology 7:333 (2016)
“Wild boar in the city: Phenotypic responses to urbanisation.” Science of the Total Environment (2021)
Podgórski, T., et al. “Spatiotemporal behavioral plasticity of wild boar (Sus scrofa) under contrasting conditions of human pressure: primeval forest and metropolitan area.” Journal of Mammalogy, 94, 109–119 (2013)
“Wild Boar Proves High Tolerance to Human-Caused Disruptions: Management Implications in African Swine Fever Outbreaks” (2024)
Groenen, M. A. M., et al. “Analyses of pig genomes provide insight into porcine demography and evolution.” Nature, 491 (2012)
Piattoni, F., et al. “Interrelationships between wild boars (Sus scrofa) and truffles.” True Truffle (Tuber spp.) in the World: Soil Ecology, Systematics and Biochemistry. Cham: Springer International Publishing (2016)
“Mycophagy by invasive wild boar (Sus scrofa) facilitates dispersal of native and introduced mycorrhizal fungi in Patagonia, Argentina.” Fungal Ecology, 26, 51–58 (2017)
Don, A., Hagen, C., Grüneberg, E., & Vos, C. “Bioturbation by wild boar increases the stability of forest soil carbon.” Biogeosciences, 16, 4145–4155 (2019)
O’Bryan, C. J., Patton, N. R., Hone, J., Lewis, J. S., Berdejo-Espinola, V., Risch, D. R., Holden, M. H., & McDonald-Madden, E. “Unrecognized threat to global soil carbon by a widespread invasive species.” Global Change Biology, 27(14), 3195–3196 (2021)
Grunwald, S., et al. “Wild boar (Sus scrofa) has minor effects on soil nutrient and carbon dynamics” (2023)
Ivey, M. R., Colvin, M., Strickland, B. K., & Lashley, M. A. “Reduced vertebrate diversity independent of spatial scale following feral swine invasions.” Ecology and Evolution (2019)
Risch, D. R., Ringma, J., & Price, M. R. “The global impact of wild pigs (Sus scrofa) on terrestrial biodiversity.” Scientific Reports, 11(1) (2021)

Featured Creature: Mycorrhizal Fungi

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported via Wikimedia Commons

What thread is longer than the galaxy is wide but is hidden six inches underground, holds soil together, and has been in a successful relationship for close to 500 million years?

The Mycorrhizal Fungi!

Featured Creature: Mycorrhizal Fungi — Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported via Wikimedia Commons

My adventure with planting rose bushes has activated a learning path I didn’t know I needed! As I learn more about the ways my foliage does or doesn’t survive, I’m learning more and more about soil. I never really gave much thought to the significant activity happening below the surface and the massive impact it has on the world above.

Threads, Not Roots

Mycorrhizal fungi aren’t one species, or even a single fungus. They’re a whole group of fungi that form symbiotic partnerships with most land-based plant and tree roots. The threads wrap around roots and spread out into the dirt like an underground spider web. Some of the fungi wrap around the outside of the roots and some grow into root cells and branch out from there. In exchange for the sugar the plant provides to the fungi, the fungi help the plants get water and nutrients.

The Fungal Version of a Meet-Cute

Like any good relationship, it’s all about the meet up and the underground version of “how YOU doin’?” The hyphae (the tips of the fungal threads) sense chemicals coming from a nearby plant root. The hyphae then curl toward the root and wrap around it and may even grow into the root cells. Inside the cell, the fungi form bushy, branching structures called arbuscules, which is where the magic happens. In the arbuscules, the plant sends sugars made in its leaves down to the roots and into the fungi and the fungi use their long network of threads to forage for water and nutrients like phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium in pockets of soil the root can’t reach. They then share those resources back into the plant through the same connection. Like any healthy relationship, the give-and-take isn’t fixed; both partners adjust how much they give based on what they’re getting. If the plant sends more sugar, the fungi typically send more nutrients back. If nutrients are scarce, the fungi may hold onto more of them. Over time, the fungi develops into extended arms for the plant’s root system, letting the plant access resources it could never reach alone.

The Hidden Carbon Bonanza

Worldwide, plants and trees send an enormous amount of carbon underground to mycorrhizal fungi every year. Researchers estimate that, globally, roughly 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide are sent underground to mycorrhizal fungi every year. Sometimes the carbon returns immediately through respiration. Other times, it gets folded into fungal biomass and soil processes instead.

Regardless, the scale is significant. Soil stores far more carbon than the atmosphere, and the fungi help move, shape, and stabilize that carbon in ways climate models are still working to capture properly. The fungi also help bind soil into stable clumps. The clumps, called aggregates, create pockets for air and water to move freely, supporting plant roots and soil organisms. They hold onto carbon and nutrients, making them a vital indicator of soil fertility. They are also far less prone to washing or blowing away compared to loose, unstructured soil. Scientists are still exploring this function, but put simply, mycorrhiza fungi do not just live in the soil. They actively build soil fertility.

How Ecosystems Hold Together

Ecosystems are not just a collection of separate plants or trees. They are networks whose stability depends on strong root systems and good soil structure that helps keep water in the ground. Mycorrhiza fungi are critical to keeping the networks connected. They improve nutrient uptake, especially for phosphorus and other hard-to-access resources, which help plants and trees grow more strongly and establish more reliably in poor or disturbed soils. They also help plants and trees handle drought, disease, and other stress, which is why they are so important in places where conditions are changing fast.

When plants do better, the insects, birds, mammals (including humans), and microbes that depend on them do better too. So, while the fungus may be hidden underground, the ripple effect of its benefits extend far and wide.

Diversity Matters

Different species create different root environments, leak different kinds of carbon into the soil, and support different fungal partners. Mixed ecosystems usually build a more varied underground community than a simple one. The resulting fungal diversity improves nutrient cycling efficiency by spreading the work across multiple species and strategies.

Some fungi are better at breaking down organic matter, some are better at moving phosphorus or nitrogen, and some are better at functioning under different moisture or soil conditions. When all of these species coexist, the soil can more richly capture, transform, and recycle nutrients through more pathways. For example, a forest with richer tree diversity will usually have richer fungal diversity, with the relationships described above reinforcing one another.

Underground diversity is especially important in drought. Mycorrhizal networks increase the effective reach of roots, so plants and trees can keep accessing water and mineral nutrients from soil pockets that roots alone would miss. In some cases, fungi may also help move water through shared underground connections, giving stressed plants and seedlings a better chance of hanging on when the surface soil dries out.

Once we understand these relationships, we can see that forest resilience isn’t as abstract as it may seem. A forest with a mix of species and mycorrhizal types will likely handle drought better simply because the trees are not all relying on the same pathway for survival. Fungi don’t “solve” drought issues, but they can help soften the impact and make recovery faster once hydration returns.

Underground ecosystems are hard to map and the risk of fungal depletion in degraded ecosystems is significant. Depleted soils are less stable, slow plant recovery, increase erosion, and are harder to restore. The microbial balance is also disturbed, raising the possibility of disease. (View a map showing the predicted density of underground networks created by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi).

Mycorrhizal fungi have been shaping plant life for hundreds of millions of years and likely helped early species make the jump from the ocean onto land. That kind of staying power matters. An organism this old, this widespread, and this essential is worth our attention.

Every time I water or trim my rose bushes, I’m reminded that so much more is happening than I will ever see, and it makes having these living ecosystems right out my front window so much more special.

Sources

Featured Creature: Bison

A male plains bison (B. b. bison) at Yellowstone National Park. Image credit: Sienna Weinstein

What creature is the largest terrestrial animal in North America, an icon of the American prairie, and has one of the great conservation success stories of modern times?

**The American Bison (Bison bison)**

Featured Creature: Bison — A male plains bison (B. b. bison) at Yellowstone National Park. Image credit: Sienna Weinstein

In August of 2021, friends and I explored Yellowstone National Park, visiting iconic landmarks such as Old Faithful, the Grand Prismatic Spring, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and Yellowstone Falls. While there, we saw numerous wildlife species, including the true icon of the American plains: the bison. In March 2026, while vacationing in the Silicon Valley area of California, I discovered a paddock with a small herd of plains bison open to visitors. I was surprised to discover a park 20% larger than New York’s Central Park filled with bison. I just had to take a look for myself.

Big, Burly, and Bushy Bovid

Quite simply, the bison is an impressive creature. Even its basic facts are astonishing. Bison are the largest terrestrial animal in North America. Mature bulls can be 5.5–6.5 feet high at the hump, and 9 to 12.5 feet in length. Cows (females) are typically smaller, at 5.0 feet high at their humps, and 7–10 feet. Their short, curved, black horns can grow up to 2 feet long, and they can weigh between 1,800–2,400 pounds.

Their formidable appearance is enhanced by several unique traits that make them easily identifiable. Their deep brown fur creates a long mane that covers their distinct hump and gives them a long beard. Their large heads contain a thick skull used not only for digging through snow to reach vegetation underneath, but to fight with one another by crashing their head or horns together.

Thanks in large part (pun intended!) to their size, Bison live between 15–20 years. Their massive presence makes them relatively safe from natural predators, but like most creatures, the weak, old, and young of the species can fall prey to large predators such as mountain lions, bears, or wolves.

A male plains bison at Yellowstone National Park. Image credit: Sienna Weinstein

The Bison Playbook: Life, Love, and Lunch on the Prairie

Bisons are communicators, especially during the breeding season (the rut). Grunts, snorts, and bellows advertise dominance and challenge rivals. Body language, including head tossing, ground pawing, and wallowing conveys aggression or social status. In breeding season, females release scents that indicate reproductive willingness.

Breeding typically occurs in mid- to late summer, with intense competition for female attention. Like humans, bison breed for approximately 9 months; spring is birthing season. Cows typically give birth to a single calf; twins, while extremely rare, are possible. Within hours, calves are mobile. Females are the primary caregivers, nursing for several months and protecting and guiding their young.

Herd animals, bison live in groups that facilitate social structure and provide protection from predators. They are typically composed of females, calves, and young males. They have relatively long lifespans for large mammals—often 10–20 years in the wild—and delayed maturity, with females breeding at around two to three years, and males competing successfully only when older and larger. Outside the breeding season, the older bulls may be solitary or form small bachelor groups. The herd structure provides protection from predators and facilitates social learning.

Bison exhibit seasonal movements rather than strict migrations, tracking food resources across the landscape. They are herbivores that primarily graze on grasses and sedges, though they will also consume forbs and shrubs when available, especially in winter or drought conditions. Their diet shifts seasonally depending on plant availability, and their grazing plays a key ecological role in shaping grassland ecosystems.

As a keystone, “ecosystem engineer” species for North American grasslands, bison play an important role in shaping landscapes. Their behavior and habits disproportionately influence their ecosystem by promoting plant diversity, aerating soil, and creating habitat for various plant and animal species.

Bison are selective grazers, favoring grasses over flowering plants (forbs), which increases plant diversity and stimulates new growth. They create shallow depressions in the dirt known as wallows for dust bathing, which later fill with water, creating small, temporary wetlands for insects and amphibians. Their massive hooves also help break up the soil, while their dung acts as a seed spreader and nitrogen-rich fertilizer, boosting soil health.

Their dung also incubates the eggs and larvae of numerous insects, and many bird species, including endangered species, in turn, feed on these insects and use fallen bison fur for nesting.

A historic photograph (c. 1892) of a massive pile of bison skulls at the Michigan Carbon Works facility, where massive quantities of bison bones were processed for commercial uses, like fertilizer and bone char. Image credit: Unknown photographer (Public Domain)

A Cultural Legend and an Epic Comeback Story

Long before the bison were scientifically studied, Indigenous peoples across North America recognized the ecological, spiritual, and practical purpose of the bison. For millennia, Native communities used every part of the animal: meat for food, hides for clothing and shelter, bones for tools, sinew for bindings, and the bison itself as a centerpiece of ceremony and prayer.

Even today, more than 60 tribes continue to weave their sacred “Brother Buffalo” into family life, spiritual practice, and food traditions.

Despite their significant cultural impact in Native American history, the bison were the victims of one of the most catastrophic wildlife collapses in recorded history.

In the nineteenth century as European settlers pushed westward, they brought with them railways, repeating rifles, and a booming international market for hides and bones. What followed was a slaughter of almost incomprehensible scale.

Bison populations once estimated at 30 to 60 million animals crashed to fewer than 1,000 by the 1890s. Some accounts suggest only 300 survived. The U.S. military actively encouraged the killing, recognizing that eliminating bison meant undermining the food supply, and resistance, of Plains tribes. Disease from cattle and competition with domestic livestock piled on. The species was, for all practical purposes, moments from extinction.

But at core, the bison’s survival story is a human story too. In the late 1860s, a handful of private citizens—ranchers, conservationists, and animal lovers acting largely without government support—began capturing and sheltering bison. These rescued animals became the foundational stock for nearly every herd alive today.

Today, about 31,000 bison are managed as wildlife across public lands in the United States and Canada, with another 360,000 in private herds. In 2016, the American bison was named the national mammal of the United States, a long overdue recognition.

Despite their incredible comeback, the story of the bison isn’t finished. They are still listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List, and many scientists use the sobering phrase “ecologically extinct” to describe its status across most of its former range. The populations that remain are often too small, too fragmented, and too genetically isolated to play the full ecological role bison once performed.

Hybridization with cattle, disease, habitat loss, and inconsistent policy support all continue to cast long shadows. The work ahead of us is to expand connected habitats, support Indigenous-led conservation, protect genetically intact herds, and build the kind of durable policy commitment a national mammal deserves. Although humans previously pulled the bison back from the verge of extinction once, we must make sure we don’t leave it stranded on the edge.

Sienna Weinstein is a wildlife photographer, zoologist, and lifelong advocate for the conservation of wildlife across the globe. She earned her B.S. in Zoology from the University of Vermont, followed by a M.S. degree in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England. While earning her Bachelor’s degree, Sienna participated in a study abroad program in South Africa and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), taking part in fieldwork involving species abundance and diversity in the southern African ecosystem. She is also an official member of the Upsilon Tau chapter of the Beta Beta Beta National Biological Honor Society.

Deciding at the end of her academic career that she wanted to grow her natural creativity and hobby of photography into something more, Sienna dedicated herself to the field of wildlife conservation communication as a means to promote the conservation of wildlife. Her photography has been credited by organizations including The Nature Conservancy, Zoo New England, and the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. She was also an invited reviewer of an elephant ethology lesson plan for Picture Perfect STEM Lessons (May 2017) by NSTA Press. Along with writing for Bio4Climate, she is also a volunteer writer for the New England Primate Conservancy. In her free time, she enjoys playing video games, watching wildlife documentaries, photographing nature and wildlife, and posting her work on her LinkedIn profile. She hopes to create a more professional portfolio in the near future.

References

Featured Creature: Florida manatee

A Florida manatee photographed by Michal Slaný via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

What creature spends its entire life underwater, yet is related to Earth’s largest land animal, will approach boats and swimmers out of pure curiosity, and can sadly be individually identified by striking white scars made by boat propellers?

**The Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris)**

Featured Creature: Florida manatee — A Florida manatee photographed by Michal Slaný via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

Other than certain breeds of domesticated dogs (mainly those with floppy ears), my mother’s favorite animal is the gentle sea giant, the manatee. In the mid 1990s, she gifted me a copy of Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld’s Manatee Winter. Part of the Smithsonian Oceanic Collection, this child-friendly book is about a mother West Indian manatee and her little calf traveling from the Gulf of Mexico, up a Florida river, through dangerous waters filled with speeding boats and entangling water weeds to escape the chill of winter. My copy of the book also came with two adorable plush manatee dolls depicting the mother and baby.

A Warm Coastal Wanderer

The Florida manatee is a subspecies of the West Indian manatee, and their year-round distribution in the southeastern United States is restricted to peninsular Florida, as they need warm water to survive the chilly winter (which runs from December through February). Key areas within the state include the Crystal River/Kings Bay area, as well as various warm-water refuges, both coastal and inland. Major Florida lakes in which the Florida manatee can be found include Okeechobee and George; major Florida rivers include St. Johns, Suwannee, Manatee, Caloosahatchee, St. Lucie, and Crystal. Florida manatees can also be found within four major artesian springs (Volusia Blue Spring, Kings Bay springs at the head of Crystal River, Homosassa Springs, and Warm Mineral Spring) during the winter months. Some winter “retreats” are even the result of human activity, namely, seven principal power plant thermal outfalls–four are located on the Atlantic coast, three are on the Gulf of Mexico coast.

During the non-winter months (March through November), some manatees disperse to other southeastern coastal states. Along the Atlantic coast, these include the states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. A small number of manatee sightings have occurred along the mid-Atlantic coast, as far north as Massachusetts. Along the Gulf of Mexico coast west of Florida, some manatees regularly migrate to Alabama during the warmer months, and others have been occasionally sighted in Mississippi, Louisiana, and as far west as Texas. Within their range, they inhabit shallow [3–20 feet (0.9–6.1 m)] coastal, estuarine, and freshwater environments, requiring access to seagrass beds for food and shelter.

Outside of the United States, a small number of Florida manatees have reached and taken up residence in the Bahamas. In recent years, a few vagrants—identified through photo-identification as known Florida manatees—have shown up in Cuba and Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

A Florida manatee cow and calf. Image credit: nebrooks via iNaturalist (CC-BY)

Blubbery Float Potato: Grazing, Gliding, and Vibing Through Warm Waters

Manatees are slow-moving, gentle, and curious creatures, known to approach boats and swimmers out of pure interest. They typically swim at an easygoing three to five miles per hour (4.83 to 8.05 km/h), but in short bursts can travel up to 20 miles per hour (32.2 km/h). Manatees are mostly solitary, but are also semi-social, gathering in loose, non-hierarchical groups, particularly in warm water during winter. The only long-term bond between manatees is that between a mother and her calf, which lasts between one to two years. Manatees communicate using a series of chirps, squeaks, and squeals.

The average West Indian manatee is about 8.9–11.5 feet (2.7–3.5 m) long, and weighs 440–1,320 pounds (200–600 kg), with females generally larger than males. The largest individual on record weighed 3,649 pounds (1,655 kg), and measured 15 feet (4.6 m) long! Manatees are estimated to live 50 years or more in the wild, and one captive Florida manatee, affectionately named Snooty, lived for 69 years (1948–2017).

Speaking of snoots (noses), manatees have a prehensile snout for grabbing vegetation and bringing it into the mouth. Pelage (fur) cover is sparse across the body, which might play a role in reducing algae build-up on their thick skin. Manatee skin is primarily gray, but can vary in color due to algae and other biota such as barnacles, which can live on their host.

Does the manatee remind you of another particular creature? One with an equally famous nose, lack of fur, and gray skin? Manatees are relatives of the elephant! Don’t believe me? Besides genetic evidence, manatees have three to four nails on each flipper, a vestigial trait of land-dwelling elephantine-like ancestors.

As sirenians (also known as sea cows, Order Sirenia), the manatee is an herbivore fully adapted to aquatic life. Instead of hind limbs, they have a spatula-like paddle tail for propulsion in the water. Manatees have evolved streamlined bodies which lack external ear flaps, thus decreasing resistance in the aquatic environment. Manatees can withstand large changes in salinity (the amount of salt in water), and are found in both freshwater and saltwater. Their extremely low metabolic rate and lack of a thick layer of insulating body fat limits them to locations with warm waters, including tropical regions.

With regard to feeding, manatees spend up to eight hours a day grazing on over 60 species of seagrasses and other aquatic plants, and can eat from 4–9% of their body weight of the green stuff each day! With regard to sleeping, manatees rest from two to 12 hours per day, either suspended near the water’s surface or lying on the bottom of the seafloor (again, they primarily reside in shallow waters), usually for several hours at a time.

Manatees are considered a keystone species–one that plays a crucial role in maintaining the health and diversity of their native ecosystems, since their actions significantly impact the environment and other species. By grazing on vast amounts of aquatic vegetation, manatees serve as “aquatic gardeners” by trimming seagrasses, which keeps the beds healthy and prevents them from becoming overgrown. Their feeding and movement create habitats for other organisms, improves water quality, and fosters the growth of diverse marine life, including fish, crabs, and even sea turtles. As they consume large amounts of aquatic plants and produce waste, they help cycle nutrients back into the ecosystem, supporting overall productivity. Feeding on all sorts of aquatic vegetation also allows for increased sunlight penetration into the shallow waters, crucial for all sorts of marine life to grow and thrive.

Manatees are also considered an indicator species: their health and presence are directly tied to the health of their environment. As such, they serve as crucial indicators of habitat quality. If manatees were to become extinct in the wild, many animals that depend upon manatee contributions to the habitat for survival (including for food, shelter, camouflage from predators and reproductive cycles), also could be at risk of disappearing for good. This includes multiple species of clams, crabs, fish, seahorses, sea turtles, starfish, and coastline birds. The manatees’ cultivated “aquatic gardens” also contain plants that help filter out nutrients from land runoffs, protecting fragile coastlines, wetlands and coral reefs from contaminants.

A Florida manatee with visible algae growth along the back, along with scarring from boat propellers. Image credit: Viktor via iNaturalist (CC-BY)

A Cute Sea Cow In Need of Conservation Help

The Florida manatee is listed as Vulnerable [to extinction] on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Manatees face threats that are both anthropogenic (human-caused) and natural events (which may also be exacerbated by humans). Potentially catastrophic threats to manatees include exposure to cold temperatures, harmful algal blooms (e.g. red tide), seagrass loss, hurricanes, and emergent diseases. Climate change may also threaten Florida manatees over the long term by exacerbating these threats or creating new ones.

Manatees are injured or killed by several types of human-related activities, the most well-known being collisions with fast speedboats. These collisions often result in long-lasting white propeller blade scars standing out against the gray skin of the manatee, which can be used to easily identify individuals. In addition to collisions with vessels, other documented threats are entanglement in fishing gear or debris, and incidental ingestion of marine debris that injures or blocks the gastrointestinal tract. Entanglement rarely results in death, but often causes disfiguring injuries, and in extreme cases, flipper amputation. Manatees also die from entrapment in water-control structures and stormwater pipes, and from crushing in flood-control structures, in canal locks, or between large ships and docks.

Large-scale mortality events caused by disease have decimated other populations of marine mammals, including seals and dolphins. While no endemic diseases have been documented in manatees, populations have been exposed to pathogens—such as Toxoplasma and morbillivirus—that have been responsible for large-scale mortality events in other marine mammal species. It’s a concern that must continue to be monitored in order to have immediate action taken should signs of an outbreak emerge.

The West Indian Manatee, including both subspecies, is protected under United States federal legislation through the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 and the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. At the state level, the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act of 1978 provides the framework for the establishment of a number of important regulatory protections for manatees, such as boat speed rules.

The Florida Manatee is a conservation-reliant species, meaning that the sustainability of the population is supported by active conservation programs. There is a high degree of interaction (both direct and indirect) between manatees and a variety of human activities in a state where coastal development and human population density are both high and increasing. Large and active research and management programs at federal, state, and county levels have been implemented to reduce watercraft-related and other human-caused mortality (e.g., speed restriction zones, sanctuaries), to protect and restore key warm-water habitats, and to rescue, rehabilitate and release injured or sick manatees.

Various organizations are restoring seagrass beds, cleaning up waterways, and restoring natural springs to provide safe warm-water habitats. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has established speed zones to reduce incidences between manatees and boats. The Manatee Rescue & Rehabilitation Partnership (MRP), which includes facilities such as Disney, rescues and rehabilitates sick or injured manatees. In the Indian River Lagoon, due to severe starvation stemming from habitat loss, experimental supplemental feeding programs (e.g., providing romaine lettuce) have been implemented. Finally, efforts are underway to reduce nutrient runoff (fertilizers, septic systems) that causes harmful algal blooms and kills seagrasses critical for manatees and other marine life.

It’s an excellent start, but with the looming threat of climate change, along with other long-term or as of yet non-existent dangers, many such conservation actions need to continue should this iconic species of the American southeast continue to endear us, and, even more, survive and thrive in the decades to come within Florida’s waters.

Sources

Featured Creature: Hippopotamus

Credit: Amer Kalam, via Unsplash.

Which creature is a land animal closely related to marine mammals, carries its own pharmacy in its skin, and is the latest social media star?

The Hippopotamus!

Baby hippos are having a moment on social media. From Mr. Mars Potato Jones and his mother Posie at Tanganiyka Wildlife Park in Kansas to Moo Deng at Thailand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo, hippos are some of the latest online animal celebrities. Inspired by Tania Roa’s 2021 Featured Creature on the hippo, we’re revisiting these fascinating ecosystem engineers.

River Horse

Despite their resemblance to large water pigs or even cows, hippopotamuses are named from the ancient Greek meaning for “river horse.” Their closest living relatives are cetaceans—whales, dolphins, and porpoises—forming the clade Whippomorpha within even-toed ungulates (artiodactyls). Genetic studies reveal shared DNA sequences unique to hippos and cetaceans, confirming they diverged from a common ancestor around 52–47 million years ago in the Eocene. Fossil evidence traces hippos to anthracotheres, semiaquatic artiodactyls from the late Eocene (~40 million years ago), with the hippopotamid lineage solidifying in the late Miocene (~7.4 million years ago) via forms like Epirigenys and Bothriogenys. This makes hippos the end of Africa’s longest terrestrial cetartiodactyl lineage, while cetaceans took to full oceans.
While they make look like descendants of sauropsid dinosaurs, they evolved post-extinction (after 66 million years ago) from synapsid-mammal stock. They do have a distant Triassic cousin, the giant synapsid Lisowicia bojani (208 million years ago), a 9-ton, hippo-like herbivore that rivaled early dinosaurs in size.

Who Needs Walgreens?

While hippos have thin, hairless skin prone to cracking in sub-Saharan sun, they’ve adapted over time and developed specialized mucous glands that secrete a viscous, oily-red-orange fluid that acts as a built-in sunscreen. Often mislabeled as “blood sweat,” the secretion starts off colorless and oxides into a reddish hipposudoric acid and orange norhipposudoric acid, both non-benzenoid aromatics derived from homogentistic acid. These pigments create a UV absorbent, retain moisture, and exhibit antibiotic activity against bacteria like Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli. This “built-in pharmacy” evolved for hyper-arid protection, hinting at bio-inspired human antimicrobials.

“Mother and Young Hippo, Uganda” by Rod Waddington is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .

Land Cetaceans Dropping Nutrient Bombs

Hippos spend about 16 hours daily submerged in order to thermoregulate and have adapted sophisticated sensory awareness capabilities. Their eyes, nostrils, and ears remain above water, while their jawbones detect hydro-vibrations under the surface. This 360° awareness enables them to communicate with other hippos and maintain contact with their pod, detect predators and threats, and navigate murky waters with low visibility.

Hippos can hold their breath underwater for approximately 5 minutes, keeping their nostrils and ears sealed against the water. They don’t technically swim; their pachyosteosclerotic (ultra-dense) bones prevent buoyancy, so they “hop” along riverbeds, walking in depths up to 5m despite their 3-ton mass.
Nocturnal grazers, hippos act as ecosystem engineers, consuming short grass, and defecating massive dung loads directly into waterways. Their waste delivers nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica, often at 10x higher concentrations than the surrounding grasslands. The silica boost alone fuels diatom algae blooms that support entire food webs!

Hippos at Risk

Hippopotamuses were once found throughout more than half of the African continent. Unfortunately, they are now classified as Vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature due primarily to habitat loss and poaching, with population declines ranging from 10,000-18,000 since 2008.

Climate-driven droughts are exacerbating loss of hippo habitats, causing literal downstream ecosystem impacts from the reduction in nutrient cycling. Without hippo dung delivering concentrated nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica to rivers, diatom algae blooms collapse, slashing fish biomass by up to 88% and disrupting food webs.

Sources

Featured Creature: Palm Tree

Coconut palms in Key West, FL. Image open source.

What tree isn’t really a tree at all, has no annual growth rings, no taproot, and no branches — yet can outlast almost everything around it in hurricane-force winds?

The Palm Tree!

Featured Creature: Palm Tree — Coconut palms in Key West, FL. Image open source.

This week’s Featured Creature is written by Lori Pierelli, Bio4Climate’s Director of Communications and Strategic Engagement. A transplant from Maryland to Florida, Lori now lives in the land of palm trees . . . and hurricanes. After removing the stump of a palm tree that did not survive Hurricane Helene floodwaters, Lori discovered an extraordinary network of roots that needed to be removed. It was then she realized how these trees nearly always survive storms that take down almost everything else around them. . .

When you imagine a palm tree, you almost always picture them in a setting of sunny weather, tropical breezes, and turquoise waters. And you’re not wrong. But palm trees are much more than scenery for beachy dreams or a background for vacation memories. Their resiliency and ecological engineering help stabilize and restore storm-damaged areas like those along the Florida Gulf Coast.

Globally, there are more than 2,500 species of palms spread across tropical and subtropical regions. Part of the Arecaceae family, palm trees are monocots (a type of flowering plant characterized by seeds that contain only one embryonic leaf) and are more closely related to grasses than what we typically picture as a “tree.” Palms don’t have annual growth rings, they don’t branch out in the same way, and their root systems are completely different.

While most trees have a single taproot from which their roots spread, palm trees have a dense, fairly shallow network of fibrous roots that emerge from a small area around the base of the trunk. The roots maintain a generally uniform thickness as they grow outward, forming a flexible network that grips into sandy or saturated soil.

The flexible network of roots is how the trees stay standing in hurricane winds. As the winds push against the palm, the trunk bends and sways. The root system shifts but holds. In loose coastal sands or flood-soaked ground, the root system distributes the force instead of concentrating it in a single, rigid point. Even after a palm dies, those roots continue to matter. As they decay, they leave channels in the soil that allow water to infiltrate more easily, air to move downward, and microbes and invertebrates to travel. Even after the tree is gone, the root structure doesn’t simply disappear.

Spotlighting Florida Natives

Palm trees are ancient “grasses” that build living architecture above and below ground. In Florida, two types of palm tree showcase the resiliency of these monocots: the cabbage palm (Sabal palmetto; the Florida state tree), and the low-growing saw palmetto (Serenoa repens). These cousins thrive in hurricane country, from coastal dunes to inland hammocks, stitching together sandy soils and storm-battered landscapes.

Cabbage palms grow anywhere from 30 to 80 feet, their fan-like fronds fanning out from a fibrous trunk that sways without snapping. They anchor marshes, barrier islands, and urban edges, tolerating salt spray, poor drainage, and fire. Their fruits — sweet, black drupes — are a feast for northern cardinals, mockingbirds, raccoons, black bears, and Keys deer, while nectar-rich flowers draw bees, butterflies, and wasps. Epiphytes like Spanish moss and resurrection ferns drape the trunks, sheltering treefrogs, anoles, and nesting cavity birds such as screech owls and pileated woodpeckers.

Saw palmettos hug the ground in dense thickets, their fan leaves edged with tiny saw-teeth. They bind dunes against erosion, shelter quail, gopher tortoises, rabbits, and marsh rabbits from predators and storms, and resprout after fires or floods.
(Note: the saw palmetto shown in the author’s image below sprouted after Hurricane Helene. There was no indication of any sort of palm in that spot prior to the flood, and the author did not plant it.)

Saw palmetto berries nourish black bears, Florida panthers, scrub jays, and white-tailed deer, while small white flowers lure sweat bees, native solitary bees, and hoverflies. The shaded understory becomes a safe haven for cotton rats, skinks, grasshoppers, and even bobwhite quail chicks hiding from hawks. (So far, the author hasn’t seen any bears, deer, or panthers in her yard.)

Saw palmetto. Courtesy Lori Pierelli, from her side yard.

Cold Limits

Palm trees are synonymous with tropical weather for a simple reason. They’re adapted to warm climates but not cold. Most species struggle when the temperature drops below freezing because their cells lack “antifreeze” proteins (thickened cell walls) that prevent ice crystal damage. Freezes cause fronds to yellow and drop, meristems (the growing tips) to blacken and die, and vascular tissues to rupture as water expands into ice.

Sabal palmettos tend to be hardier and can survive brief temperature drops to as low as 15°F (-9°C), but prolonged cold or wet freezes can still kill young palms or stress mature ones.

Saw palmettos handle the cold similarly. While their lower profile offers some ground-level protection, sharp frosts can brown their fans and slow berry production.

Temperature vulnerabilities are what define the range of palm trees, and prove that even resilient creatures have limits built on millennia of equatorial evolution.

Spikes. Spikes? Spikes!

Palm Spikes; Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Many palms, including varieties common in Florida yards, sport sharp spines along their stalks.
(And yes, they hurt when you try to trim the fronds, even if you’re wearing thick gardening gloves.)

The spikes do serve a purpose, however. They are a defense mechanism against hungry herbivores, making tender leaves and growing tips harder to reach. In wilder settings, they thwart feral pigs and overbrowsing from invasive species. They also create safe nooks for smaller creatures like fence lizards, Carolina wrens, and juvenile snakes. They are a perfect example of the dichotomy of nature: repelling some species while welcoming others.

Palm trees aren’t just survivors. They are active “ecosystem engineers,” creating conditions that support a range of life systems. Below ground, their fibrous roots form a living net that traps nutrients washed from sandy soils, slows floodwater runoff to recharge aquifers, and feeds mycorrhizal fungi, nematodes, springtails, and earthworms that churn and enrich the earth. Even as roots turn over, they support carbon and nitrogen cycles by maintaining pore spaces that boost infiltration, cut erosion, and let oxygen reach deeper microbes.

Above ground, the support systems multiply. Fallen palm fronds create a thick layer of mulch that suppresses weeds, retains moisture through dry spells, and decomposes into humus that feeds ground-nesters like ants and beetles. The rough bark of palm trunks hosts orchids, tillandsias, and bromeliads whose tiny tanks shelter frogs, springtails, and fairy shrimp, while older frond “skirts” offer roost sites for bats, owls, and insects. Flowers provide pulsed nectar for bees and butterflies, and fruits sustain hungry animals, such as cardinals who strip seeds, or bears who raid fallen drupes.

Palms are also carbon sinks, locking CO₂ into persistent fibers and fruits, bolstering coastal “blue carbon” in marshes and mangroves against sea rise and waves. They moderate microclimates by shading and cooling burrows for tortoises and rabbits, creating windbreaks that protect seedlings, and humdifying dry air for understory herbs as their fronds evaporate.

After significant events such as floods or gale force wind storms, palms jump-start habitat recovery because they resprout quickly and rapidly provide structures where animals can hide and forage while full habitats rebuild.

Palm tree survivors among Hurricane Melissa (2025) devastation in Black River, Jamaica. Copyright @Traceyathorne, Instagram.

Enjoying the Beach Vibes with a New Level of Understanding

Next time you’re dreaming of lounging by the sea with a cold drink in your hand, remember that the warm tropical breeze blowing through your hair is being created by much more than just another type of tree. The quintessential vacation backdrop has been adapted over millenia into one of nature’s most sophisticated living infrastructures, sheltering native species, pulling carbon from the air, recharging aquifers, and anchoring shorelines against storms. Experiencing these wonders of nature are one more reason to book that tropical vacation!

Sources

Sabal palmetto facts: hort.ifas.ufl.edu/database/documents/pdf/tree_fact_sheets/sabpala.pdf
USDA on Sabal palmetto: srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/misc/ag_654/volume_2/sabal/palmetto.htm
Florida Native Plant Society: fnps.org/plant/sabal-palmetto
Saw palmetto: sccf.org/2025/04/10/meet-the-natives-saw-palmetto/
Palm spines defense: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8046181/
Hurricane resistance: atlantapalms.com/blogs/blog/hurricanes-and-palm-trees
Pygmy date palm thorns: theshrubqueen.com/2014/12/09/pygmy-date-palm-friend-or-foe/
Lethal bronzing disease: gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/care/pests-and-diseases/diseases/lethal-bronzing-disease/

Featured Creature: Coquerel’s sifaka

An adult Coquerel’s sifaka photographed in Madagascar's Ankarafantsika National Park
Image credit: Allan Hopkins via Flickr (CC-BY-NC-ND)

What animal gained fame in a 1990s children’s TV show, and whose leaping abilities bring to mind a graceful human dancer?

The Coquerel’s sifaka (Propithecus coquereli)!

Featured Creature: Coquerel’s sifaka — An adult Coquerel’s sifaka photographed in Madagascar’s Ankarafantsika National Park
Image credit: Allan Hopkins via Flickr (CC-BY-NC-ND)

One of the shows, which I fondly recall growing up in the 1990’s was a live-action/animated children’s series titled Zoboomafoo. Created and hosted by zoologists and wildlife filmmakers, the Kratt Brothers (Chris and Martin Kratt), the show featured a talking Coquerel’s sifaka lemur named Zoboomafoo, who for the most part, was puppeteered, but in certain shots, was played by the “famous” lemur Jovian. Jovan’s appearance and his characteristic forward-facing bipedal bounds on the ground with his arms outstretched to the sides, made him a sight to behold, and his species leapt to the top among my favorite group of primates, the lemurs.

Cliché, but True: LEAPING LEMURS!

Native to the dry northwestern forests of Madagascar, the Coquerel’s sifaka, like other sifaka species, are distinguished from other lemur species by the way they move around their habitat: vertical clinging and leaping. Maintaining a vertical posture, sifakas leap from tree to tree using their long, powerful back legs, which can easily propel them distances up to 33 feet (10 m)! This unique motion isn’t limited to arboreal movement, however. Like their close cousin, the Verreaux’s sifaka, stretching their arms to the sides for balance, Coquerel’s sifakas move on open ground between areas of trees using bipedal hops. Unlike the former species, which bound sideways and cross their legs one in front of the other, the latter species bounds forward like a kangaroo, leaning in the direction of its jump to achieve forward momentum. In either case, these ground bounds evoke a human dancer! What’s more, the Coquerel’s sifaka has the amazing ability to leap to and across spiny trees and precisely place its hands and feet so that it won’t hurt itself on the cactus-like spines.

Girl Power!

Like most lemur species, the Coquerel’s sifaka is matriarchal–females hold a dominant status above males, they have preferential access to food and other resources, and they exhibit a polyandrous mating system, in which females mate with multiple males. Unlike other animal species which exhibit polyandry primarily to increase the chances for successful fertilization, polyandry among Coquerel’s sifakas is thought to be advantageous because when exact paternity is not known among the males of a group, the likelihood of infanticide among the potential fathers decreases.

Mouths: Useful for Munching, Vocalizing, and Cleaning

The Coquerel’s sifaka spends 30%-40% of the day foraging, especially during the morning, midday, and evening hours. They are herbivorous, with a diet that varies by season. In the dry season, they feed on mature leaves and buds, while in the wet season, immature leaves, flowers, fruit, bark, and dead wood are on the menu. Their diet contains a lot of fiber, so in order to aid in digestion, they have an enlarged cecum coupled with an extremely long colon. Thanks to each family group constantly moving around their home range, when releasing waste material as dung, Coquerel’s sifakas aid in seed dispersion of plant species throughout their forested habitat.

The Coquerel’s sifaka uses a wide variety of communication methods to relay messages about potential danger, territorial boundaries, and mood, among others. Among the most famous of their signals are their vocal signals. The word “shifaka” is a Malagasy name that comes from the lemurs’ characteristic “shif-auk” sound. The first syllable is a low growl that “bubbles” in the throat, and the second is a clicking sound like an amplified hiccup. The “shih-fak” call is used to warn fellow group members of a potential ground predator, or to threaten enemies and intruders, as all sifaka species are territorial. Contact calls used when family groups are traveling include soft grunts and growls. If a sifaka is separated from the group, it may emit a long, loud wail to find fellow members.

Coquerel’s sifakas have also been observed using visual signals to communicate as well. One of these is a rapid backward jerking of the head, which is a threatening action which may accompany the “shih-fak” call. They also rely heavily on scent for communication. Males typically scent-mark using a gland in their throats, which they will rub back and forth along branches. Females are more likely to scent-mark with anogenital glands. Despite the observance of scent-marking by researchers, it is not entirely clear what information is conveyed in these scents besides marking territory.

Like all lemurs, cleanliness is a must. Not only do Coquerel’s sifakas use what’s known as a toothcomb to occasionally scrape fruit off of a pit, but even more, they use this specialized dental structure consisting of a group of front teeth to groom one another. Like with other primates, grooming is a social activity that strengthens the bond between group members.

Many Conservation Threats, and Much Needed Collaboration

Like many other lemurs, the Coquerel’s sifaka have been studied extensively to help scientists learn about the evolutionary history of primates, including humans. They have been the subject of those researching the evolution of color vision, paternal care, matriarchal primate societies, and causes of speciation.

Unfortunately, 98% of lemur species (103 out of 107 listed on the IUCN’s Red List) are threatened with extinction, and of these, 31% of species (33 in total) are listed as Critically Endangered, including the Coquerel’s sifaka. The biggest threats facing the Coquerel’s sifaka are hunting for both local food and the pet trade, as well as habitat destruction in the form of slash-and-burn agriculture and annual burning to create new pasture for human livestock. Charcoal enterprises occurring in their “corner” of Madagascar are another habitat-destroyer of the already restricted distribution of this lemur species. Traditional beliefs placed major taboos on sifaka hunting, but new immigrants coming into the region in search of income are changing these beliefs through cultural erosion.

The Coquerel’s sifaka is listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), an international agreement between governments whose goal is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild plants and animals doesn’t threaten their survival. Coquerel’s sifakas are found in three protected areas in Madagascar: Ankarafantsika National Park, Anjiamangirana Protected Area, and Anjajavy Reserve. Unfortunately, habitat loss and hunting still pose threats in the former two locations.

Issues regarding Madagascar’s poverty have limited conservation efforts, especially when considering the need to burn down forest portions for economic gain and farmland. For this reason, it is critical to note that until the people of Madagascar can prosper, it will be difficult for the island’s unique wildlife to do the same. For this reason, the Wildlife Conservation Society has been collaborating with local communities to improve agricultural methods, develop businesses focused on sustainable resources, and modernize the local economies.

In addition, the American Journal of Primatology published a study in 2014 which recommended community-based conservation actions geared towards preserving forest connectivity, enacting alternative methods of charcoal production, logging, and grass fires, minimizing poaching, and collaborating with local authorities and researchers to ensure long-term monitoring of Coquerel’s sifakas in Ankarafantsika National Park.

With time and collaboration, hopefully the people and the truly unique wildlife of Madagascar will bounce back, and the Coquerel’s sifaka can continue to leap within the island’s northwestern dry forests for decades to come.

References:

• https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/coquerels-sifaka

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coquerel%27s_sifaka

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sifaka

• https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/18355/115572275

• https://www.lemurconservationnetwork.org/learn/the-iucn-red-list-and-lemurs/

• https://lemur.duke.edu/discover/meet-the-lemurs/coquerels-sifaka/
• https://www.marylandzoo.org/animal/coquerels-sifaka/

• https://neprimateconservancy.org/coquerels-sifaka/

• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajp.22243
• https://programs.wcs.org/madagascar/About-Us/News/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/25728.aspx

• https://www.sfzoo.org/coquerels-sifaka/

Images:

• https://www.flickr.com/photos/hoppy1951/45134640554/

Featured Creature: Black Bear

PanAmericana 2017 - the image was taken on an overlanding travel from Ushuaia to Anchorage - taken by Thomas Fuhrmann, SnowmanStudios - see more pictures on / mehr Aufnahmen auf www.snowmanstudios.de

What animal travels over 100 miles for food and, due to warming temperatures, is suffering from insomnia?

Thomas Fuhrmann, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The Black Bear!

Observing the scene from a large boulder at the water’s edge, the silence is disrupted by a faint clanging in the bushes as an unnatural rustling sounds from my campsite. Enraptured by the unfurling of clouds across the jagged landscape, I don’t see the creature until it emerges from a cluster of pines, pattering along a neighboring stretch of bedrock. The Black Bear is only 20 feet away when it dips into the water, head bobbing as the creature paddles to the other side of the lake. When it reaches the opposing shore, I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding, and watch as it pulls itself out of the water and crawls onto the green grass. The bear blends in with the darkness and disappears into the night.

It was the last night of a seven-day backpacking trip in Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. We were staying at a campsite by Emerald Lake. After the bear encounter, I later returned to my campsite, only to find my bear barrels, designed to securely store food and other smellable items, scattered about – a reminder of the bear’s presence, and the complicated relationship between our species.

The Black Bear, also known as the American Black Bear, is found throughout North America, from the rugged Arctic regions of Alaska and Canada to parts of northern Mexico. In search of food, these creatures will travel up to 100 miles outside their territories, with their food availability often differing depending on the season. As omnivores, Black Bears consume both plants and other animals. Black bears help the growth of plants, such as berries, because the seeds are able to exit their digestive track and germinate – with the added benefit of fertile soil.

In the Pacific Northwest, Black Bears are well-known for their consumption of salmon. After catching and consuming salmon, Black Bears will often leave the carcasses at the edges of the stream or river, in an area known as the riparian zone. The salmon release nitrogen into the soil, which is then absorbed by large plant species. There is evidence that the nutrients from the salmon, created as a result of their predator-prey relationship with Black Bears, increase the overall health and well-being of the forest ecosystems in these areas.

[1], Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In many areas, Black Bear food availability is being impacted by climate change. Recently, a group of researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno aimed to better understand how bear behavior has changed over time, especially the tension between human centers and Black Bear habitats. The group found that temperature swings in the early spring are devastating Black Bear food supply, resulting in bears seeking out food sources in human-centered areas. According to Dr. Kelley Stewart, who is leading the project, “The plants start growing and flowering with an early spring warm-up, and then there’s a late-season frost that takes them all out. It especially affects berries and the harder things like acorns, pine nuts and other things that nature normally provides for bears.” This decrease in food supply is leading to another negative outcome: Black Bears entering human settlements in search of food.

With increased human-bear interactions, bear mortality rises. While in part a result of lacking food resources, scavenging in human-dominated areas can result in the bears getting hit by cars or being euthanized. In June of 2024, Sierra County, California reported the first Black Bear-caused human mortality in recorded California history. Researchers have connected late frosts in early spring causing twice as many lethal removals of Black Bears compared to years without these cold snaps. When bears seek out the food of humans, they get used to trash and other attractants as a viable food source, therefore increasing their proximity to human centers. When bears become habituated to these environments, and human food, they are often labelled as “dangerous” and are euthanized.

There are communities working to repair this relationship between Black Bears and human-occupied places. The Boulder Bear Coalition was founded in 2014 and aims to educate the Boulder, Colorado residents on “proactively reducing attractants and enhancing deterrents.” Their methods focus on targeting the root of the issue, such as securing trash and providing resources so residents can implement strategies that keep bears and people safe. But the question remains that if Black Bears are seeking out human food in response to limited sustenance availability, do these actions solve the fundamental problem of our changing climate?

Climate change not only threatens Black Bear food supplies, but also their hibernation patterns. During the winter, Black Bears enter a state of decreased heart rate and dormancy known as hibernation, which is a response to colder temperatures. In preparation for hibernation, bears partake in excessive eating habits, otherwise known as hyperphagia. This increase in food intake helps build up body mass for the long winter months. However, with warming winters, bears are not sleeping for as long as they used to. According to a recent study, the length of bear hibernation could decrease by 19 to 39 days by 2050. With a shorter hibernation period, Black Bears will be threatened by limited food supply during the winter months. Which only becomes more complicated by the availability of human-caused waste and attractants – therefore resulting in further conflict and bear euthanizations.

It was our last night in the alpine zone. We reached our destination, Moose Lake, in the early afternoon, and had the rest of the day to enjoy our last night at elevation. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sleek figure meander along the shore. The shape of the creature slowly came into focus. There was a Black Bear wandering only twenty feet away from our campsite, scrambling along the rock edge, looking blissfully serene as it glanced back and forth to the shore ahead and the crystal clear water. Barely looking our way, the bear prodded into the distance, its body ebbing and flowing with the gently lapping shoreline. It continued along the water’s edge before disappearing on the far side of the lake.

My experiences in the California backcountry have shown that mutual respect between our species is possible – and has the power to be a beautiful relationship. In the face of climate change, we must learn to co-exist and compromise with care and empathy in our ever-evolving landscape.

To learn more about the connection between humans and species like bears, watch the webinar we hosted in partnership with GBH last year. In The Goldilocks Strategy: Getting Our Relationship with Bears and Lions Just Right, hear straight from experts working with lions and bears and communities that live alongside them.

Adrianna Drindak is a rising senior at Dartmouth College studying Environmental Earth Sciences and Environmental Studies. Prior to interning at Bio4Climate, she worked as a field technician studying ovenbirds at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest and as a laboratory technician in an ecology lab. Adrianna is currently an undergraduate researcher in the Quaternary Geology Lab at Dartmouth, with a specific focus on documenting climate history and past glaciations in the northeast region of the United States. This summer, Adrianna is looking forward to applying her science background to an outreach role, and is excited to brainstorm ways to make science more accessible. In her free time, Adrianna enjoys reading, baking gluten free treats, hiking, and backpacking.

Sources:

Featured Creature: Camel

A dromedary camel photographed in Varamin, Iran
Image credit: Houman Doroudi via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

What animal is the “Superhero of the Desert,” reshaping entire ecosystems simply by eating, roaming, and . . . pooping?

Meet the Desert Superhero!

Desert wanderer
Curved as the dunes he walks on
Splat! Anger expressed

A close family friend asked me to cover camels as one of my Featured Creatures. Ask, and ye shall receive! Despite the majority of camels today being domesticated species, they still play important roles in their local ecosystem, and contribute to the biodiversity of the habitats in which they live.

Dominating the Desert, and De-bunking Assumptions

Camels are far more than the four-legged, desert pack animals typically shown in movies—their presence shapes the health, stability, and biodiversity of their ecosystems. Their grazing patterns, movement, digestion, and remarkable resilience collectively engineer the landscapes they inhabit.

Camels haven’t just adapted to desert life, their entire bodies are designed for endurance in some of the most unforgiving climates on Earth. Did you know they can go up to 10 days without drinking, even in extreme heat! Their long legs help keep them cool, elevating their bodies away from ground temperatures that can reach 158ºF (70°C), and their thick coat insulates them against radiant heat. In the summer, their coats lighten to reflect the sunlight.

Long eyelashes, ear hairs, and sealable nostrils protect against the blowing sand, while their wide, padded feet keep them from sinking into the desert sand or snow. Bactrian camels grow heavy winter coats that enable survival in winter temperatures (-20ºF [-29ºC]), then shed them to adapt to the hot summer temperatures. Their mouths have a thick, leathery lining that allows them to chew thorny, salty vegetation, with split, mobile upper lips that help them grasp sparse grasses . . . and spit. Well, sorta. . .

Desert Engineers and Seed Dispersers

These “ships of the desert” feed on thorny, salty, dry plants that most herbivores avoid, keeping dominant species in check and promoting plant diversity. Their nomadic lifestyle prevents overgrazing, spreading this balancing effect across vast ranges and reducing the risk of desertification. As they move, they disperse seeds in their dung, enriching poor soils with nutrients and enabling new vegetation to take hold where it otherwise could not.

Even their hydration strategy—relying heavily on moisture from plants and drinking only occasionally—protects scarce water sources that smaller species depend on. Trails they create become pathways for other wildlife, while their presence attracts predators and scavengers, helping sustain food webs in seemingly barren terrain.

People often assume that camels carry water in their humps and spit when they are annoyed. But those humps aren’t sloshing with water. They are fat-storage structures that provide a slow-burning energy reserve when food is scarce. And that spitting? It’s actually a warning system composed of both saliva and partially digested stomach contents.

Helping People and Ecosystems Endure

Even though they may look goofy at first, the ecological and cultural value of the camel is extraordinary.

They have supported human survival in harsh environments for thousands of years. Domesticated camels provide wool, meat, milk, transportation, and labor. Their endurance and strength have made them central to trade routes, cultural traditions, and economic activity across regions where few other animals could thrive.

Camels shape vegetation patterns, support biodiversity, stabilize fragile ecosystems, and enable life in regions that would otherwise be nearly uninhabitable. Without camels, many desert landscapes would lose the very processes that sustain them.

So next time you see a camel, in a movie, at a zoo, or on your travels, remember that these are no ordinary creatures. They are survival specialists and a cornerstone of some of the world’s harshest and most remarkable environments.

The wild bactrian camel (of which there are only 950 remaining)
photographed in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert.
Image credit: Chris Scharf, a client of Royle Safaris via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

Dig Deeper

• https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/camel

• https://arkbiodiv.com/2022/05/18/the-camels-play-important-role-in-ecosystem-management-important-actor-of-the-desert/

• https://dairynews.today/global/news/odnogorbyy1-verblyud-klyuchevoy-vid-dlya-vozrozhdeniya-pustyni-i-ustoychivogo-razvitiya.html

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bactrian_camel

• https://kimd.org/the-role-of-camels-in-desert-ecosystems/

• https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/how-many-types-of-camels-live-in-the-world-today.html

• https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/what-do-camels-store-in-their-humps-and-other-camel-superpowers

• https://www.zsl.org/news-and-events/news/wild-bactrian-camel-research

Featured Creature: Macrotermes Termites

What is the second most consumed insect group in the world (by humans) that can build nests with heights up to 9 meters (29.5 feet) and has a symbiotic relationship with fungi?

Macrotermes carbonarius (Image Credit: Soh Kam Yung via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC))

As a featured creature writer for Bio4Climate, I try to read through as many of our published pieces as possible, even those that pre-date my tenure. It’s a tall order, there are so many! Hidden alongside the grand humpback whale, the impressionable Pando, and the beautiful luna moth, I found Fred Jennings’ piece on the zombie ant fungus: an unpleasant looking insect-pathogenic fungus that attaches to ants’ exoskeletons and takes over their bodies from the inside out. It was a little grotesque, a little unsettling, and completely and utterly fascinating.

I’ve been wanting to write about a creature that doesn’t usually make the highlight reel…something easy to overlook, but essential in its own way. My hope is to inspire curiosity (and appreciation) for the parts of nature that don’t always fit our ideas of beauty.

More Than Just Pests

When I think of termites I think about how people, especially homeowners, consider them pests. One of the first links that pops up in an online search for the word termites is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s guide for how to identify and control them. But just as it’s unfair to call sloths lazy simply because they move slowly, it’s unfair to define termites only by their “pest” status. They weren’t ever “pests” until we made them so.

Macrotermes vitrialatus (Image Credit: Craig Peter via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC))

Macrotermes are fungus-growing termites that reside in tropical regions of Africa and Asia. These insects are larger than other common termites, the largest of all 330 species being the Macrotermes bellicosus, with queens reaching over four inches in length! Most of these bugs are dark brown, with some exceptions like the Macrotermes carbonarius, which are entirely black, and the Macrotermes gilvus, which have orange/red-brown heads.

Termites are a valuable part of many ecosystems. Like fungi, bacteria, and detritivores like millipedes, they decompose dead plant material, modifying the physical and chemical distribution of the soil. Creatures like termites restore soil that’s been degraded and play a key role in cellulose recycling, breaking down plants, wood, and paper into smaller molecules other organisms can use, and returning nutrients to the ecosystem. But, these termites are pretty special for a reason other than their role as ecosystem engineers.

Teamwork Makes the Colony Work

Macrotermes thrive thanks to teamwork, and a symbiotic partnership with a fungus that shares their life cycle. It’s remarkable that these termites (just like other creature populations) cooperate so well in such large numbers. Macrotermes colonies have a highly organized social system in which each insect has a role that makes life efficient and successful: workers gather food and build and maintain the nest/mound, soldiers use their strong jaws to protect the colony from predators like ants, and the queen and king reproduce. This social complexity is mirrored by the colony’s architecture.

*Macrotermes carbonarius* (Image Credit: Dirk Mezger via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC))

Termite mounds aren’t just shelters, they’re marvels of natural engineering. Built with purpose, these architectural feats regulate temperature and humidity to create the ideal environment for the termite’s fungal partner, Termitomyces, to grow. After foraging for wood or dead plant material, Macrotermes workers masticate and deposit it in chambers inside their nest, producing the perfect substrate for fungus to grow into a comb. Macrotermes cultivate these fungus gardens and feed on them while the fungus degrades plant material, resulting in a continuous supply of food for the termites. To stimulate the right conditions for Termitomyces to grow, macrotermes build their nests with air ducts and ventilation systems. As the fungus produces heat in the nest, workers can open or block individual tunnels that lead to the surface to regulate temperature and humidity. These structures are built to various heights, with some only one foot tall while exceptional ones can rise more than 30 feet.

Tall *Macrotermes bellicosus* nest
(Image Credit: Gabriel Leite via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC))

Macrotermes and Humans

Macrotermes termites are an important edible insect widely consumed throughout Africa, along with their fungus gardens. People use the bugs, mushrooms, and termite soil in medicinal practices. The soil can be used as fertilizer or as building material to make bricks and plaster houses. These insects are also used as bait and feed for livestock. Alongside these uses, macrotermes termites have a role in superstitious beliefs, their nests serving as burying places associated with the spiritual world.

Outside their habitat in urban environments, most macrotermes are unable to survive, so they aren’t considered pests like other termites because they don’t cause as much damage to wood structures like homes and buildings. In contrast, macrotermes can pose threats to agriculture by directly consuming crops, roots, and stems of plants. But, like nearly every other creature in the natural world, these bugs don’t live without some challenges of their own.

The largest threat to termites is changes in land use; particularly transitions to organized orchards and more intensified agricultural practices. As ecosystem engineers that contribute directly to the nutrient makeup of the soil in their ecosystem, the changes in land use can have damaging effects on the landscape and organisms throughout the food cycle.

*Macrotermes* carbonarius (Image Credit: budak via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC))

Nature deserves to be seen in its full complexity, not just through the lens of what we find beautiful, helpful, scary, or annoying. When we only celebrate the vibrant colors, graceful shapes, or soothing sounds, we risk overlooking the strange, the hidden, and the essential.

Abigail Gipson is an environmental advocate with a bachelor’s degree in humanitarian studies from Fordham University. Working to protect the natural world and its inhabitants, Abigail is specifically interested in environmental protection, ecosystem-based adaptation, and the intersection of climate change with human rights and animal welfare. She loves autumn, reading, and gardening.

Dig Deeper

Featured Creature: Strangler Fig

What creature grows backwards and can swallow a tree whole?

The strangler fig!

A strangler fig in Mossman Gorge, Queensland. (Image by author).

A Fig Grows in Manhattan

I recently wrapped a fig tree for the winter. Nestled in the back of a community garden, in the heart of New York City, I was one of many who flocked not for its fruit but for its barren limbs. An Italian cultivar, and therefore unfit to withstand east coast winters, this fig depends on a bundle of insulation to survive the season. The tree grows in Elizabeth Street Garden, a space that serves the community in innumerable ways, including as a source of ecological awareness.

Wrapping the fig was no small task. With frozen fingers we tied twigs together with twine, like bows on presents. Strangers held branches for one another to fasten, and together we contained the fig’s unwieldy body into clusters. Neighbors exchanged introductions and experienced volunteers advised the novice, including me. Though I’d spent countless hours in the garden, this was my first fig wrapping. My arms trembled as the tree resisted each bind. Guiding the branches together without snapping them was a delicate balance. But caring for our fig felt good and I like to think that after several springs in the sunlight it understood our efforts. Eventually, we wrapped each cluster with burlap, stuffed them with straw and tied them off again. In the end, the tree resembled a different creature entirely.

Elizabeth Street Garden, New York, NY. (Image by author)

Growing Down

Two springs earlier, I was wrapped up with another fig. I was in Australia for a semester, studying at the University of Melbourne, and had traveled with friends to the northeast coast of Queensland to see the Great Barrier Reef. It was there that I fell in love with the oldest tropical rainforest in the world, the Daintree Rainforest.

The fig I found there was monumental. Its roots spread across the forest floor like a junkyard of mangled metal beams that seemed to never end. They climbed and twisted their way around an older tree, reaching over the canopy where they encased it entirely.

Detail, strangler fig encases support tree.
Al Kordesch, iNaturalist, CC0

The strangler fig begins its life at the top of the forest, often from a seed dropped by a bird into the notch of another tree. From there it absorbs an abundance of light inaccessible to the forest’s understory and sends its roots crawling down its support tree in search of fertile ground. Quickly then, the strangler fig grows, fueled by an unstoppable combination of sunlight, moisture, and nutrients from the soil. Sometimes, in this process, the fig consumes and strangles its support tree to death, hence its name. Other times, the fig can actually act as a brace or shield, protecting the support tree from storms and other damage. Even as they may overtake one tree, strangler figs also give new life to the forest.

As many as one million figs can come from a single tree. It is these figs that attract the animals who disperse both their seeds and the seeds of thousands of other plant species. With more than 750 species of Ficus feeding more than 1,200 distinct species of birds and mammals, the fig is a keystone resource of the tropical rainforest —the ecological community depends upon its presence and without it, the habitat’s biodiversity is at risk.

Fig-Wasp Pollination

Like the strangler fig, its pollination story is also one of sacrifice. Each fig species is uniquely pollinated by one, or in some cases a few, corresponding species of wasp. While figs are commonly thought of as fruit, they are technically capsules of many tiny flowers turned inward, also known as a syconium. This is where their pollination begins. The life of a female fig wasp essentially starts when she exits the fig from which she was born to reproduce inside of another. Each Ficus species depends upon one or two unique species of wasps, and she must find a fig of both the right species and perfect stage of development. Upon finding the perfect fig, the female wasp enters through a tiny hole at the top of the syconium, losing her wings and antennae in the process. She will not need them again, on a one way journey to lay her eggs and die. The male wasps make a similar sacrifice. The first to hatch, they are wingless, only intended to mate with the females and chew out an exit before dying. The females, loaded with eggs and pollen, emerge from the fig and continue the cycle.

The life cycle of the fig wasp.
(U.S. Forest Service, Illustration by Simon van Noort, Iziko Museum of Cape Town)

The mutualistic relationship between the fig and its wasp is critical to its role as a keystone resource. As each wasp must reproduce additional fig species in the forest at different stages of development, there remains a constant supply of figs for the rainforest.

However, climate change threatens these wasps and their figs. Studies have shown that in higher temperatures, fig wasps live shorter lives which makes it more difficult for them to travel the long distances needed to reach the trees they pollinate. One study found that the suboptimal temperatures even shifted the competitive balance to favor non-pollinating wasps rather than the typically dominant pollinators.

Another critical threat to figs across the globe is deforestation, in its destruction of habitat and exacerbation of climate change. In Australia, this threat looms large. Is it the only developed nation listed in a 2021 World Wildlife Fund study on deforestation hotspots, with Queensland as the epicenter of forest loss. Further, a study published earlier this year in Conservation Biology concluded that in failing to comply with environmental law, Australia has fallen short on international deforestation commitments. Fortunately, the strangler figs I fell in love with in the Daintree are protected as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988 and Indigenous Protected Area in 2013.

The view flying into Cairns, Queensland.
(Image by author)

Stewards of the Rainforest

The Daintree Rainforest has been home to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people for more than 50,000 years. Aboriginal Australians with a deep cultural and spiritual connection to the land, the Eastern Kuku Yalanji have been fighting to reclaim their ancestral territory since European colonization in the 18th century. Only in 2021 did the Australian government formally return more than 160,000 hectares to the land’s original custodians. The Queensland government and the Eastern Kuku Yalanji now jointly manage the Daintree, Ngalba Bulal, Kalkajaka, and Hope Islands parks with the intention for the Eastern Kuku Yalanji to eventually be the sole stewards.

Rooted in an understanding of the land as kin, the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people are collaborating with environmental charities like Rainforest Rescue and Climate Force to repair what’s been lost, reforesting hundreds of acres and creating a wildlife corridor between the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. The corridor aims to regenerate a portion of the rainforest that was cleared in the 1950s for agriculture.

Upon returning to Cairns from the rainforest, we set sail and marveled at the Great Barrier Reef. My memories of the Daintree’s deep greens mingled with the underwater rainbow of the reef. At the Cairns Art Gallery the next day, a solo exhibition of artist Maharlina Gorospe-Lockie’s work, Once Was, visualized this amalgamation of colors in my mind. Gorospe-Lockie’s imagined tropical coastal landscapes draw from her work on coastal zone management in the Philippines and challenge viewers to consider the changes in our natural environment.

Maharlina Gorospe-Lockie, Everything Will Be Fine #1 2023
From the solo exhibition *Once Was* at the Cairns Art Gallery. (photo by author).

On the final day wrapping our fig in New York, I lean on a ladder above the canopy of our community garden and in the understory of the urban jungle. Visitors filter in and out, often stopping to ask what we’re up to. Some offer condolences for the garden and our beloved fig, at risk of eviction in February. We share stories of the burlap tree and look forward to the day we unwrap its branches.

The parallel lives of these figs cross paths only in my mind, and now yours. Perhaps also in the fig on your plate or the tree soon to be planted around the corner.

Jane Olsen is a writer committed to climate justice. Born and raised in New York City, she is driven to make cities more livable, green and just. She is also passionate about the power of storytelling to evoke change and build community. This fuels her love for writing, as does a desire to convey and inspire biophilia. Jane earned her BA in English with a Creative Writing concentration and a minor in Government and Legal Studies from Bowdoin College.

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: ‘Ōhi’a Lehua

What tree has adapted to grow directly in lava rock and is a keystone species of the Hawaiian watershed?

‘Ōhi’a Lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha)!

The first time I saw the vibrant blossoms of the ‘ōhi’a lehua tree, I was walking on a dirt path in Kauai’s Waimea Canyon State Park, gaping down at the most colorful red and green gorges I had ever seen. Needing a breather from the steep visual plunge, I looked up from the canyon and noticed bright red flowers on the side of the path. As I got closer and could see the plant more clearly, the first thought that popped into my head was how similar the flowers looked to those fiber optic light toys I had played with as a kid. (If you don’t know what fiber optic light toys look like, look them up. You’ll see exactly what I mean.)

After my trip to Waimea Canyon, I saw ‘ōhi’a lehua everywhere. When I drove along the coast between the beach and the sloping mountains, when I hiked the volcanic craters of Haleakala, and when I visited parks and gardens across the islands that protect native plants and animals. ‘Ōhi’a lehua is the most common native tree in Hawaii, so seeing its fiery red, orange, or yellow blossoms every day felt so very ordinary. But ‘ōhi’a lehua is far from ordinary.

Image Credit: Ed Sharron via iNaturalist

Let Me Introduce You to My New Friend, ‘Ōhia Lehua

Endemic to the six largest islands of Hawaii, ‘ōhi’a lehua is the dominant tree species in native forests, present in approximately 80% of the total area of these ecosystems and covering close to one million acres of land across the state. Depending on where exactly it grows, its size can vary widely, from a small shrub to a large tree. Found only in the Hawaiian archipelago, ‘ōhi’a lehua grows at elevations from sea level to higher than 9000 feet, and in a variety of habitats like shrublands, mesic forests (forests that receive a moderate amount of moisture throughout the year), and more wet, or hydric, forests.

You can easily identify the ‘ōhi’a lehua blossoms by their mass of stamens – the part of the flower that produces pollen – which are slender stalks with pollen-bearing anthers on the end. It’s what made me think the ‘ōhi’a lehua looked exactly like those fiber optic light toys. These powder puff-like flowers are most often brilliant shades of red and orange, but yellow, pink, and sometimes even white ones can be found.

‘Ōhi’a lehua grows slowly, reaching up to 20-25 meters (66-82 feet) in certain conditions.

With a little help from the wind, the seeds of ‘ōhi’a lehua travel from the tree and settle in cracks in the ground of young lava rock. It is, in every sense, a true pioneer plant. As one of the earliest plants to colonize and grow in fresh lava fields, ‘ōhi’a lehua stabilizes the soil and makes it more habitable for other species.

Even though ‘ōhi’a lehua can blanket Hawaii’s native forests, this flowering tree also grows alone, as you can see in the photograph below. Plants like ‘ōhi’a lehua fill me with happiness because they are able to grow in the most harsh, barren, and disrupted places, and they make it possible for other species to do the same. Plants like ‘ōhi’a lehua fill me with surety that even though sometimes poorly treated, the natural world will continue to be strong. Plants like ‘ōhi’a lehua make me believe in the resilience of nature.

Arid, rocky, Mediterranean coast. (Via Pexels)

How ‘Ōhi’a Lehua Cares for the Hawaiian People

Biodiversity forms the web of life we depend on for so many things – food, water, medicine, a stable climate, and more. But this connection between human beings and natural life is not always clear, understood, or appreciated. But there is a concept in Hawaiian culture called aloha ‘āina, or love of the land, which teaches that if you take care of the land, it will take care of you. The ‘ōhi’a lehua in particular takes care of the Hawaiian people in a pretty special way.

One of the most important characteristics of this flowering evergreen tree is that it’s a keystone species, protecting the Hawaiian watershed and conserving a great amount of water. The way I see it, ‘Ōhi’a lehua is an essential glue that holds Hawaii’s native ecosystems together. The leaves of ‘ōhi’a lehua are excellent at catching fog, mist, and rain, replenishing the islands’ aquifers and providing drinking and irrigation water for Hawaiian communities. ‘Ōhi’a lehua’s ability to retain water, particularly after storms, not only makes that water accessible for other plants, but it helps mitigate erosion and flooding. The tree provides food and shelter for native insects, rare native tree snails (kāhuli), and native and endangered birds like the Hawaiian honeycreepers (‘i’iwi, ‘apapane, and ‘ākepa). ‘Ōhi’a lehua trunks protect native seedlings and act as nurse logs, providing new plants with nutrients and a growing environment.

‘I’iwi, the Scarlet Hawaiian Honeycreeper, perched on an ‘ohi’a tree (Image Credit: Nick Volpe)

The Myth of ‘Ōhi’a Lehua

‘Ōhi’a lehua may have a disproportionately large effect on Hawaii’s ecosystems as a keystone species, but its presence as a meaningful part of Hawaiian culture could be even larger. There are many versions of mo’olelo (story) about the origin of the ‘ōhi’a lehua tree, but the most common one is about young lovers named Ōhi’a and Lehua. Pele, the goddess of the volcano, changed herself into a human woman and tried to entice ‘Ōhi’a. When he denied her, Pele became enraged and transformed ‘Ōhi’a into a tree. When Lehua found out, she was so heartbroken that she prayed to the gods to somehow help her reunite with him. Answering her prayers, the gods transformed Lehua into a flower and placed her on the ‘ōhi’a tree’s limbs. To this day, it’s believed that whenever a lehua flower is picked, the skies will open up and rain will fall, because the lovers have been separated.

‘Ōhi’a Lehua as a Cultural Symbol

In Hawaiian culture, the ‘ōhi’a lehua is a symbol of love, resilience, and ecological harmony. The transformation of Ohia and Lehua into tree and flower represents the inseparable bond between two people who love each other, and between the tree and its flowers. The term pua lehua, or lehua flowers, is often used to describe people who express the same grace, strength, and resilience of the ‘ōhi’a lehua. Pilina, a Hawaiian word that means “connection” or “relationship,” is an important value in Hawaiian culture because it is a critical way for people to connect with and understand the world around them. The ‘ōhi’a lehua tree is a symbol of pilina, and embodies this relationship between the Hawaiian landscape and its people.

Hula dancers performing at the Merrie Monarch Festival
Thomas Tunsch (**CC BY-SA** )

The ‘ōhi’a lehua is also incredibly important to hula. Hula is the narrative dance of the Hawaiian Islands, and it is an embodiment of one’s surroundings. Dancers use fluid and graceful movements to manifest what they see around them and tell stories about the plants, animals, elements, and stars. ‘Ōhi’a lehua trees and forests are considered sacred to both Pele, the goddess of the volcano as you may recall, and Laka, goddess of hula. To enhance their storytelling and evoke the gods, dancers traditionally wear lehua blossoms or buds in lei, headbands, and around their wrists and ankles.

The Dependability of ‘Ōhi’a Lehua

‘Ōhi’a lehua has long been a part of daily life. Historically, the hardwood of the tree was used for kapa (cloth) beaters, papa ku’i ‘ai (poi pounding boards), dancing sticks and ki’i (statues), weapons, canoes, and in the construction of houses and temples. Today, the tree’s wood is used for flooring, furniture, fencing, decoration, carving, and firewood. ‘Ōhi’a lehua blossoms decorate altars for cultural ceremonies and practices. Flowers, buds, seeds, and leaves form the base of medicinal teas that can stimulate appetite and treat childbirth pain.

Threats to ‘Ōhi’a Lehua

As a native tree, ‘ōhi’a lehua competes with invasive species for moisture, nutrients, light, and space. Plants like the strawberry guava plant (Psidium cattleyanum) grow in dense thickets and block the growth of ‘ōhi’a seedlings. The invasive fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum) can dominate barren lava flows, making it difficult for ‘ōhi’a to compete. ‘Ōhi’a lehua is also threatened by non-native animals. Hooved animals like pigs, cattle, goats, and deer disturb the soil, eat sensitive native plants, and trample the roots of ‘ōhi’a lehua trees.

The most dangerous threat to ‘ōhi’a lehua is a virulent fungus called Ceratocystis fimbriate, which attacks the tree’s sapwood, preventing it from uptaking water and nutrients, and killing the tree within weeks. It’s been given the name Rapid Ohia Death (ROD) because of how quickly it suffocates the tree, turning the leaves yellow and brown and the sapwood black with fungus. Infections spread through a wound in the bark, which can be caused by animals trampling roots, lawn mowing, or even pruning, and can be present in the tree for up to a year before showing symptoms. ROD is spread by an invasive species of wood boring Ambrosia beetle that infests the tree and feeds off the fungus. When colonizing trees, the beetle produces a sawdust-like substance made of excrement and wood particles called frass, which can contain living fungal spores that get carried in wind currents and spread by sticking to animals and human clothes, tools, and vehicles.

Since its discovery in 2014, ROD has killed more than one million ‘ōhi’a lehua trees across 270,000 acres of land, making it a significant threat to biodiversity and cultural heritage. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies ‘ōhi’a lehua’s conservation status as vulnerable, and has recorded a decline in mature trees since 2020. Because ROD can spread long distances, it has the potential to wipe out ‘ōhi’a lehua across the entire state. If ‘ōhi’a lehua disappears, it will lead to a collapse of the Hawaiian watershed and radically change the ecosystem.

How the Hawaiian People Care for ‘Ōhi’a Lehua

Scientists, researchers, and native Hawaiians are working together to ensure the long-term health and resilience of ‘ōhi’a and Hawaii’s native forests by mitigating the spread of Rapid Ohia Death. Hawaii’s Forest Service monitors the land to track the spread of ROD and mortality of trees, has developed sanitation and wound-sealing treatments, and collaborates with hunters and game managers to reduce disease transmission. Scientists rigorously test ‘ōhi’a trees to understand the disease cycle, find out how it can be broken, and to identify trees resistant to the infection that could be used in potential reforestation efforts.

To prevent the spread, Hawaii has announced quarantine restrictions, travel alerts, and sanitation rules. If you are shipping vehicles between islands, you should clean the entire understory with strong soap to remove all mud and dirt from the tires and wheel wells. People who go into ‘ōhi’a forests are advised to avoid breaking branches or moving wood around, to clean their shoes and clothes, and to decontaminate any tools used with alcohol or bleach to kill the fungus. Even hula practitioners are forgoing the use of ‘ōhi’a lehua.

Orange ‘ōhi’a lehua blossom (Image Credit: Joan Wasser via National Park Service)

Mālama the ‘āina

Mālama the ‘āina is a phrase that means to care for and honor the land. ‘Ōhi’a lehua is a wonderful representation of the interconnection between people and nature and I hope learning about this beautiful tree has encouraged you to appreciate the relationship we have with the Earth and what the natural world does for us.

Remember, if you take care of the land, it will take care of you.

Abigail

Abigail Gipson is an environmental advocate with a bachelor’s degree in humanitarian studies from Fordham University. Working to protect the natural world and its inhabitants, Abigail is specifically interested in environmental protection, ecosystem-based adaptation, and the intersection of climate change with human rights and animal welfare. She loves autumn, reading, and gardening.

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: Aardvark

What unique animal could be a cross between a rabbit, a pig, an opossum, and an anteater?

The aardvark!

Featured Creature: Aardvark — Photo by Kelly Abram from iNaturalist

Meet the aardvark – a one-of-a-kind mammal native only to sub-Saharan Africa.

The aardvark has an unusual hodge-podge mix of features including rabbit-like ears, a pig-like snout, an opossum-like tail, and a long, sticky anteater-like tongue. This creature has large and formidable claws used for digging and defense. Weighing in at 115 – 180 pounds, the aardvark is much heftier than it looks.

Aardvarks inhabit the savannas, arid grasslands, and bushlands of sub-Saharan Africa where there is plenty of their favorite prey, ants and termites. They are solitary and do not socialize with others unless for mating or raising young. They live for about 18 years in the wild and approximately 25 years in captivity.

The aardvark is famous for being the first noun in the English dictionary. The animal goes by many names including Cape anteater and ant bear, but its colloquial moniker, aardvark, is Afrikaans for “earth pig”.

Photo by Louise Joubert from Wikimedia Commons

Odd Relatives

Although the aardvark is an eater of ants, it is not an anteater. Understandably, the comparison comes from its similar appearance and nearly identical diet to the anteater, which leads people to assume they are the same animal. However, the aardvark is its own species entirely, and in fact, it is more closely related to elephants than to anteaters.

Unique Diet

Aardvarks are insectivores that eat ants and termites. They use their keen sense of smell to locate ant nests and termite mounds over great distances. Aardvarks have the highest number of olfactory turbinate bones of any mammal on the planet. An aardvark has about 9 -11 of these specialized bones which help support the olfactory bulb in the brain, where smells are processed. This larger-than-average olfactory system allows the aardvark to track such tiny creatures like ants and termites from far away. They have been observed swinging their heads back and forth close to the ground, much like a metal detector, to pick up a scent.

Once an aardvark locates a termite mound, it uses its claws to break open the cement-hard structure. Its tongue, coated in sticky saliva, slurps up the exposed insects in seconds. The highly adapted tongue of an aardvark can be up to 1 foot long. Over the course of a night, a single aardvark eats over 45,000 termites. Amazingly, all of this is done without chewing.

While aardvarks are classified as insectivores, they make one exception in their diet for a very unique fruit, the aardvark cucumber. This African melon looks similar to a cantaloupe but is grown completely underground. Aardvarks easily dig up the fruit and eat its watery, seed-filled interior. Once the fruit is digested, the seeds are dispersed by the aardvarks that cover their dung in dirt, effectively planting these seeds in the soil with a natural fertilizer. This symbiotic relationship helps propagate the aardvark cucumber, whose existence is entirely dependent upon the aardvark.

Photo by Nick Helme from Wikimedia Commons

Cultural Significance

The aardvark is regarded as a symbol of resilience in some African cultures due to its unrelenting bravery in tearing down termite mounds. The aardvark has very thick skin which helps avoid injury from hundreds of termite and ant bites. Because of their nocturnal habits and solitary nature, aardvarks are not a common sight during the day. It is said that anyone who is lucky enough to see one is blessed.

Earth Engineer

Aardvarks are adept earth-movers known to create specialized burrows to live in. These burrows provide shelter away from the sun and from predators. Its powerful claws are specially adapted to move massive amounts of dirt in minutes, which helps the aardvark excavate multiple chambers within the den.

Some burrows can be up to 10 feet deep and over 20 feet long. There are multiple entrances to the same burrow so the aardvark has a chance to escape if a predator poses a threat. Aardvarks have been observed to be very cautious creatures and practice an unusual ritual before exiting their abode. The aardvark stands at the edge of its burrow and uses its excellent sense of smell to detect any nearby predators. It listens for danger and emerges slowly. The aardvark then jumps a few times, pauses, and heads out for the night. Because aardvarks are primarily nocturnal, they don’t have much need for vivid sight and are colorblind. Their long ears and nose do the seeing for them.

The physiology of these soil architects may strike some as strange, but it serves a purpose. The odd, arched silhouette of the aardvark is caused by its hind legs being longer than its front, which gives them a stronger stance when digging. This adaptation, combined with their formidable claws and muscular forelimbs, allows the aardvark to dig a hole 2-feet deep in just 30 seconds – much faster than a human with a shovel.

Photo by Louise Jobert from Wikimedia Commons

Ecological Importance

When aardvarks have depleted most of their territory’s termite mounds or ant nests, they must move on to new hunting grounds. Their abandoned burrows don’t stay empty for long and are occupied by a variety of species. Hyenas, wilddogs, warthogs, civets, and porcupines make their homes in aardvark burrows. The aardvark has an incredible impact on its environment by sculpting the very landscape itself and providing shelter for other creatures.

If you want to learn more about how aardvark burrows support other animals, check out this article documenting the one of the first observations of predators and prey cohabitating in the same burrow.

Burrowing away now,
Joely

Joely Hart is a wildlife enthusiast writing to inspire curiosity about Earth’s creatures. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Central Florida and has a special interest in obscure, lesser-known species.

Sources and Further Reading:
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article274890346.html
https://www.thoughtco.com/10-facts-about-aardvarks-4129429
https://a-z-animals.com/animals/aardvark/
https://animalia.bio/aardvark#facts
https://www.britannica.com/animal/aardvark
https://carnegiemnh.org/a-is-for-aardvark/
https://nationalmuseumpublications.co.za/aardvarks-orycteropus-afer-and-their-symbolism-in-african-culture/

Featured Creature: Prairie Dog

Have you ever heard of a squirrel that barks?

Let me introduce you to the Prairie Dog.

Featured Creature: Prairie Dog — Cephas (Wikimedia Commons)

Sometimes, when walking alone in the high grasslands of the Western United States, you may feel as if you are being watched.

My first encounter with prairie dogs in the wild occurred as I stood in an empty prairie just outside of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. As I meandered along, minding my own business, dozens of furry creatures with beady little eyes appeared, propped themselves up on their hind legs, and began to follow my every step. Prairie dogs are adorable, it is true, but when you see a dozen spread out, standing upright, watching you intently, it can be a bit disconcerting.

They were, however, no threat, and weren’t eyeballing me just to judge me. A prairie dog standing on his hind legs – “periscoping” as it is known – is simply keeping watch for predators. And their distinctive bark? It may sound like “yip,” but it is actually a sophisticated language developed over thousands of years that is still not fully understood by scientists.

Prairie dog barks convey everything about a predator’s size, speed, and location. According to a study at the University of Northern Arizona led by Con Slobodchikoff, Ph.D (see video linked below) pitch, speed, and timbre were all altered in a consistent manner corresponding to the species of predator and the characteristics of each. Certain “yips” could even be interpreted to represent nouns (the threat is “human”), verbs (the “human” is moving toward us), and adjectives (the “human” is wearing an ugly yellow shirt). So now that I think about it, I guess they were judging me, and I am not sure how I feel about that. But still, those are some impressive squirrels.

Wait, did you say squirrels?

Yes.

Squirrels. From the Sciuridae family. Prairie dogs are marmots (or ground squirrels) that bark like a dog, prompting Lewis and Clark to label them “barking squirrels,” which may lack points for creativity but is at least more accurate than calling them “dogs.” Prairie dogs, in fact, have no connection to dogs whatsoever.

Amaury Laporte (CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

There are five major species of prairie dog, who all live in North America at elevations between 2,000 and 10,000 feet. The Black-Tailed prairie dog covers the largest territory, filling an extensive region from Montana to Texas. Gunnison’s prairie dogs occupy the southwest near the Four Corners region. White-Tailed prairie dogs reside in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. Mexican and Utah prairie dogs belong to Mexico and Utah, respectively, and both are considered endangered.

As you may have observed, prairie dogs live in areas prone to harsh extremes of weather. To protect themselves, they dig extensive burrow networks with multiple entrances, designed to create ventilation, route flood water into empty chambers deep underground, and keep watch for predators. Their burrows connect underground, organized into sections called “coteries,” each of which contains a single-family unit responsible for the maintenance and protection of their area. Multiple coteries become “towns” of startling size and complexity. According to the National Park Service, the largest prairie dog town on record covered 25,000 square miles, bigger than the state of West Virginia!

That IS an impressive squirrel.

Indeed.

Over the years, however, the prairie dog’s range has shrunk, scientists estimate, by as much as 99%, largely because of agriculture. Farmers and ranchers tend to regard prairie dogs as a nuisance, as they sometimes eat crops (they are mostly herbivores) and their holes create a hazard for livestock. They will bulldoze their towns or conduct contest kills to remove them, which has had devastating impacts.

Experts consider prairie dogs to be a keystone species. Their loss affects hundreds of other species who rely on them for food or use their burrows for shelter. They are instrumental in recharging groundwater, regulating soil erosion, and maintaining the soil’s level of production. Prairie dog decline, in fact, eventually leads to desertification of grassland environments.

So, an impressive AND important squirrel?

Yes, and the restoration of prairie dog habitats could be a crucial step in mitigating the effects of climate change.

If you’ve caught prairie dog fever, dive deeper into the resources below. And to learn more about Prairie Dog language, check out this fascinating video:

Hoping one day to converse with my personal prairie dog army,

Mike

Mike Conway is a part-time freelance writer who lives with his wife, kids, and dog Smudge (pictured) in Northern Virginia.

Sources:
https://animals.net/prairie-dog/
Prairie dog – Wikipedia
https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/what-do-about-prairie-dogs
Prairie Dog Decline Reduces the Supply of Ecosystem Services and Leads to Desertification of Semiarid Grasslands | PLOS ONE
Prairie Dogs | National Geographic
Prairie Dogs: Pipsqueaks of the Prairie (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Featured Creature: Beaver

Photo by Derek Otway on Unsplash

Which creature fights fires, creates wetlands, recharges groundwater, alters landscapes, and is a climate hero?

Beavers!

At Bio4Climate, we LOVE beavers. We’re borderline obsessed with them (or maybe not so borderline) because they do SO much for Earth’s ecosystems, natural cycles, and biodiversity. These furry, water-loving creatures are finally beginning to receive the recognition they deserve in mainstream media now that more people see how their existence and behaviors lead to numerous benefits for everyone’s climate resilience.

We are one of the many organizations advocating for their reintroduction across North America and some places in Europe. For this reason, when I spotted one on a hike during my time in Tennessee, I did what any Bio4Climate team member would do: jump in excitement, yell out “Oh my gosh it’s a BEAVER!” and take a picture that I’ll treasure forever.

The rockin’ rodent

Beavers live in family groups of up to eight members. Offspring stay with their parents for up to two years, meanwhile helping with newborns, food gathering, and dam building. To create dams, beavers use their large teeth to cut down trees and lug over branches, rocks, and mud until they successfully slow down the flow of water. These dams include lodges that beavers use as bedrooms and to escape from predators. Dams are designed according to the water’s speed: in steady water, the dam is built straight across, and in rushing water the dam is built with a curve. These engineers build their dams in a way that makes them nearly indestructible against storms, fires, and floods.

Look at those bright orange teeth! The color is thanks to an iron-rich protective coating. Beaver teeth grow continuously, and require gnawing on trees for trimming.

Furry firefighters

Beaver dams are what make these rodents, the largest ones in North America, so special. When dams alter the flow of water, they create ponds that stretch out a river into a wide wetland. These ponds filter pollutants and store nutrients that then attract a variety of wildlife including fish seeking nurseries, amphibians looking for shelter, and mammals and birds searching for food and water sources.

The abundance of wildlife and the storage of necessary nutrients in beaver ponds classifies these places as biodiversity hotspots, meaning they are “biogeographic regions with significant levels of biodiversity that are threatened by human habitation” (Wikipedia). Beaver ponds also store sediment, and this helps recharge groundwater. Due to the sheer wetness of these ponds, and how deep the water filters into the soil, fires are often extinguished as soon as they reach a beaver pond. In this way, beavers are nature’s firefighters, of which we need many more in areas where extreme heat is increasing.

“There’s a beaver for that”
— Ben Goldfarb

Wetland Creation
Biodiversity Support
Water Filtration
Erosion Control
Wildlife Habitat

Flood Management
Drought Resilience
Forest Fire Prevention
Carbon Sequestration
They’re Cool (pun intended)

Beavers are considered ‘ecosystem engineers’ because they actively shift the landscape by fluctuating the flow of water and the placement of plants and trees. Muskrats, minks, and river otters also find refuge in beaver lodges. When beavers take down trees, they create pockets of refuge for insects. Using their constructive talents, beavers significantly modify the region and, in turn, create much-needed habitat for many. Numerous creatures rely on beaver dams for survival, and the local ecosystem dramatically changes when a beaver family is exterminated; for these reasons, we also consider them ‘keystone species.’

Disliked dam builders

Despite the positive impact beavers have on biodiversity and ecosystems, we humans have viewed them as fur, pests, and perfume. By 1900, beavers went nearly extinct across Europe and North America. We hunted them for their fur in response to fashion trends, and trapped them for their anal musk glands, or castors, which produce castoreum, a secretion that beavers use to mark their homes and that humans use to make perfume. When beaver populations plummeted, so did the number of dams and ponds, meaning vast swaths of land were drastically altered during this time – and not for the better. To this day, we kill beavers when they wander into military bases or near urban areas since we see their dam-building behaviors as potentially damaging to man-made properties.

Thankfully, as more ‘Beaver Believers’ speak out against these practices and more authorities recognize the importance of beaver benefits, these rodents are beginning to return to their original homes. California recently passed a program specifically for beaver reintroduction efforts across the state. Washington, Utah, and Massachusetts are other states witnessing the return of beavers. People like Skip Lisle of Beaver Deceivers are designing culverts that prevent beaver dams from damaging infrastructure, but allow the beavers to create their biodiverse-filled ponds. These are just a few examples of the ways we can coexist with beavers, and in turn heal our communities.

Beaver Dam on Gurnsey Creek commons.wikimedia.org

Climate heroes

There are places in North America where water sources are decreasing for all living things, and in other regions the amount of rainfall is increasing while the amount of snow is decreasing. These weather conditions are detrimental to all of our health, unless we welcome back beavers.

As the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss increase, storing water, preventing runoff and erosion, and protecting biodiverse hotspots become more important by the hour. By restoring local water cycles, beaver ponds provide a source of life. By spreading water channels and creating new ones, beaver dams prevent flooding and stave off wildfires. By encouraging the cycling and storage of nutrients, beaver ponds nurture soil health and that leads to carbon sequestration. We all have something to gain from beavers as long as we allow them to do what they do best: build those dams.

To learn more about beavers, watch the video below and the two in the ‘Sources’ section. We also highly recommend Ben Goldfarb’s Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter for further reading.

For all creatures that deserve a feature,

By Tania Roa

Sources:
Why BEAVERS Are The Smartest Thing In Fur Pants
Why beavers matter as the planet heats up
9 Amazing Beaver Facts
Environmental Benefits of Beavers – King County
8 Facts to Celebrate International Beaver Day | Smithsonian’s National Zoo

Featured Creature: Giant Kelp

Group of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) swimming in kelp forest (Macrocystis pyrifera), California, USA. Pacific ocean. Inside the Tide" by Royal Botanic Garden Sydney is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Which creature creates forests underwater, provides food and shelter for countless species, and helps stabilize the climate?

Giant Kelp!

Under the sea

To witness the beauty of kelp, and watch how it contributes to the survival of numerous marine and terrestrial creatures, you have to go underwater. Although kelp looks like a plant, it is actually a type of algae and is part of the kingdom Protista. Most creatures in this kingdom are single-celled organisms, but Giant Kelp has complex cells and is the largest protist.

Giant Kelp reside in cold, clear, nutrient-rich waters. Unlike plants, they lack roots, so they attach themselves to hard, rocky seafloors. Along their ‘branches,’ they have sacs filled with gas that allow them to grow upright, and they can reach heights of more than 100 feet (30 meters). They truly are giant! Once they grow tall enough to reach the sea’s surface, they begin to grow sideways – extending their reach.

Another side effect of not having roots is the inability to get nutrients from underground. Luckily for kelp, they get all the nutrients they need from the sea water surrounding them. They do, however, act like plants when it comes to photosynthesis. Giant Kelp utilize the sun’s energy rather than feeding on other creatures (I suppose even protists can decide when they want to be plant-like).

School of anchovies and various rockfish and other kelp forest species
in an exhibit at Monterey Bay Aquarium, taken in 2016
Rhinopias, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The rainforests of the ocean

Giant Kelp will grow in bunches where conditions are right, such as the west coast of North- America, forming underwater forests. These forests provide food and shelter for thousands of animals including sharks and bony fishes, invertebrates such as lobsters and squids, marine mammals such as seals and sea otters, and birds such as cormorants and snowy egrets. In turn, all of these animals help maintain balance in this ecosystem, as exemplified by sea otters who eat sea urchins – a notorious kelp eater. The sheer amount of biodiversity held within kelp forests has earned the algae its nickname, “rainforest of the ocean.”

Kelps feed creatures far away from their underwater forests as well. When pieces of the algae detach and end up on beaches, coastal-living animals take advantage of its many nutrients. Decomposing kelp finds its way to the bottom of the deep sea where creatures surrounded by darkness welcome the newfound treasure.

Animals also love Giant Kelp’s thick blades that provide a barrier between them and predators. This barrier comes in handy when storms occur, too, as they decrease the intensity of incoming waves and currents. In other words, without kelps, millions of individuals would suffer – including us humans.

Featured Creature: Giant Kelp — Group of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) swimming in
kelp forest (Macrocystis pyrifera), California, USA. Pacific ocean.
Inside the Tide” by Royal Botanic Garden Sydney CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Delicious algae

Many people have taken to kelp farming to restore coastal waters, and to harvest the many benefits Giant Kelp has to offer. We can eat kelp outright, or use it to create materials that go into a variety of products – from soaps and glass to toothpaste and ice cream (yum!).

In food products you normally wouldn’t find kelp, the algae is intentionally added for its many vitamins and minerals including iron, phosphorus, calcium, potassium, amino acids. Kelp can even be taken as a vitamin supplement, or added to other vitamins for an extra boost. Although you may not be used to kelp-based soups and other dishes, you may want to learn some new recipes to get all these amazing benefits!

Sea kelp salad by dan mogford licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Our fellow ecorestorer

There’s a second reason Giant Kelp forests are considered ‘rainforests of the ocean’ – they help sequester carbon. Since kelp can photosynthesize, they are one of the many species converting carbon into oxygen. Often this job is assigned to the plant kingdom, but as we know, kelp like to partake in some aspects of the plant party. The formation of oxygen also helps keep the ocean’s pH in balance, and it’s one of the reasons why these underwater forests are a shelter for many.

As the planet and oceans warm, sequestering carbon is becoming more urgent and more difficult as emissions continue to rise. Thank you, Giant Kelp, for being an ecosystem-making, nutrient-bearing, carbon sequestering all around rockstar!

To support the important work of kelps, we can adopt sustainable fishing practices that prioritize the health of coastal marine communities. See how one group in the United Kingdom is already taking this on:

For the oceans.

By Tania Roa

Featured Creature: Giant Barrel Sponge

What creature grows tall and sturdy, cleans up its neighborhood, and defends itself from predators – all without moving a muscle?

The Giant Barrel Sponge, or Xestospongia muta!

Featured Creature: Giant Barrel Sponge — Photo By Twilight Zone Expedition Team 2007, NOAA-OE – NOAA Photo Library (Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

A Giant Barrel by any other name…

Giant barrel sponges are aptly named for their shape and great size. They grow over 1 m tall, but only grow an average of about 1.5 cm a year. After all, good things take time!

Giant barrel sponges come in a range of colors, depending on the presence of the cyanobacteria that they work with in symbiosis. They can be pink, purple, brown, reddish brown, and gray, and tend to be different colors at different depths.

You may be wondering why this “giant barrel” doesn’t look very much like Spongebob Squarepants, or the sponge you use to clean up in the kitchen. Well sponges, or animals of the phylum Porifera, come in all shapes and sizes, and there is great diversity among the 8,550 species of them. Sponges are quite ancient, with their oldest fossil records dating back 600 million years, so they’ve had time to differentiate and find their own ecological niches.

The giant barrel sponge is known as the “Redwood of the Sea.” The phrase comes from the fact that giant barrel sponges share the tendency for individuals to live long lives, from a few hundred to thousands of years old. In fact, the oldest known giant barrel sponge is over 2000 years old.

Old age isn’t the only thing they have in common with their counterparts on land. Like the magnificent redwoods, they do wonders to clean up and support the environment around them. Giant barrel sponges can filter up to 50,000 times their own volume in water in a single day. They also provide habitat to several small fish and other invertebrates that can be found living inside or on the surface of the sponge.

Photo by Andre Oortgijs (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

How does such a giant creature sustain itself?

Although giant barrel sponges are, well, giant, their diet is anything but. These creatures, like many species of whales, sustain their size not by eating very large sources of food, but by eating large volumes of it. Giant barrel sponges are filter feeders, and consume microorganisms from the water around them that they pump through their bodies. The sponges have special cells along their inner cavities called choanocytes, which work to facilitate the movement of water and the capture of food from it.

In their ocean food chain, giant barrel sponges take their place above their symbiotic partners cyanobacteria, and are consumed in turn by macroorganisms like fishes, turtles, and sea urchin. They try to defend themselves by releasing chemicals to repel their predators, but there’s only so much they can do when stuck in one place, waiting to be ingested by so many types of marine life. Like other filter feeders, giant barrel sponges ultimately form an important branch in the transfer of nutrients from very small to much larger life forms.

They don’t even have tissues, let alone organs, but their simple structure is more than enough to ensure their survival and proliferation. Giant barrel sponges reproduce by spawning, and are one of the few species of sponge that undertake sexual reproduction. Males and females release sperm and egg cells into the ocean synchronously, so that when the time comes, they have a chance of contributing to a fertilized egg that grows into a larva and, after being carried by currents to a new spot of the ocean floor, establishes itself as an independent sponge.

Check out this short video of the spawning phenomenon:

A valued community member

Giant barrel sponges are native to the oceans of the Americas, found primarily in the Caribbean Sea, and observed as far south as the coasts of Venezuela.

Due to their filtration capabilities, giant barrel sponges are real assets to the ecosystems they are a part of, but boosting water quality is not the only ecological role they play. As mentioned, many other creatures live in and around the cavernous sponges, and giant barrel sponges are one of the largest organisms in the coral reef environments where they are found. They are thought to help coral anchor to substrate (the mix of mineral, rock, and skeleton that binds reefs together), and themselves make up about 9% of coral reef substrate in certain areas where they are found. By helping in this binding process, giant barrel sponges can play an important role in reef regeneration.

Though the giant barrel sponge is not currently classified as threatened, like all of us, it is living in vulnerable times, as reef habitats are weakened in warming, acidifying waters. It is susceptible to a disease called Sponge Orange Band disease that afflicts all kinds of sponges. They can also be damaged or killed by human activities that disturb reefs and break sponges off from their surroundings.

On the flip side, when these great creatures are doing well, they enable the thriving of life all around them. May all of us aspire to say the same.

With one giant smile,
Maya

Maya Dutta is an environmental advocate and ecosystem restorer working to spread understanding on the key role of biodiversity in shaping the climate and the water, carbon, nutrient and energy cycles we rely on. She is passionate about climate change adaptation and mitigation and the ways that community-led ecosystem restoration can fight global climate change while improving the livelihood and equity of human communities. Having grown up in New York City and lived in cities all her life, Maya is interested in creating more natural infrastructure, biodiversity, and access to nature and ecological connection in urban areas.

Sources and Further Reading:
https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Xestospongia_muta
https://oceana.org/marine-life/corals-and-other-invertebrates/giant-barrel-sponge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_barrel_sponge
https://www.americanoceans.org/species/giant-barrel-sponge
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sponge.html