Posted on 01/27/2023 6:20:49 AM PST by Libloather
In findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Saint Louis University researchers and colleagues report that elephants play a key role in creating forests that store more atmospheric carbon and maintaining the biodiversity of forests in Africa. If the already critically endangered elephants become extinct, the rainforest of central and west Africa, the second largest rainforest on earth, would lose between six and nine percent of its ability to capture atmospheric carbon, amplifying planetary warming.
**SNIP**
Within the forest, some trees have light wood (low carbon density trees) while others make heavy wood (high carbon density trees). Low carbon density trees grow quickly, rising above other plants and trees to get to the sunlight. Meanwhile, high carbon density trees grow slowly, need less sunlight, and are able to grow in shade. Elephants and other megaherbivores affect the abundance of these trees by feeding more heavily on the low carbon density trees, which are more palatable and nutritious than the high carbon density species. This “thins” the forest, much like a forester would do to promote growth of their preferred species. This thinning reduces competition among trees and provides more light, space and soil nutrients to help the high carbon trees to flourish.
“Elephants eat lots of leaves from lots of trees, and they do a lot of damage when they eat,” Blake said. “They’ll strip leaves from trees, rip off a whole branch or uproot a sapling when eating, and our data shows most of this damage occurs to low carbon density trees. If there are a lot of high carbon density trees around, that’s one less competitor, eliminated by the elephants.”
Elephants are also excellent dispersers of the seeds of high carbon density trees. These trees often produce large nutritious fruits which elephants eat.
(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...
They don’t fart?
“Can Elephants Save the Planet? These Majestic Animals Are Key to Capturing Atmospheric Carbon (only 7.98 years left)”
great ... now the Democrat fascists will mandate that everyone will have to own an elephant ... “to save the planet”
We can expect this level of BS to continue as long as government grant money flows. Only turning off the money spigot will stop the flow of effluent so offensive to our intelligence.
“Can Elephants Save the Planet?”
No. If greenies really want to make a “carbon” difference...
1. Kill ALL termites. (forget about “cow” farts)
2. Ban ALL carbonated soft drinks. (Beer is exempt)
No sarc tag because those 2 things would reduce carbon in the atmosphere by a YUGE amount, yet they want us to all hold our breath (involuntarily if necessary).
The left hand of Science clearly ain’t talking to the other left hand. But . . .
Follow the science.
Right.
The medical community and science are going the way of journalism.
Waste fraud and abuse = 31+ trillion in debt.
The best thing an elephant could do is to stomp the author of this article into a pile of goo.
The earth does not need to be “saved”.
LOL. ‘Like minds’...
Elephants would save the world if there weren’t so many donkeys around.
What a marvelous and joyful coincidence that a majorly well-loved and endangered (and profitable) species suddenly hold one of the keys to saving the Earff.
Elephants good, cows bad?
To help the planet, built more nuclear power plants, which produce energy by converting long-lived radionuclides to shorter-lived radionucldes.
By this articles logic, cows are the perfect animals as they don’t eat trees at all and eat only low density plains(grass)
Save the planet, eat more beef,!!
(Yes, I tee'd this up for moose jokes)
They even have their own political party ...
“...stop the flow of effluent so offensive to our intelligence.”
Bravo! But the real stupidity, like you said, is someone had to pay for this study with a government grant that used taxpayer money. And why not just give the elephants body guards to shoot the ivory poachers? Sure save on hiring more forest rangers.
wy69
This was just one orchard company. There are others that are much bigger.
Based on that, each orchard is a carbon sink because these trees absorb tons of carbon each and every day during the growing season.
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