Animal-plant interactions in the Amazon, which is home to 25% of the world's terrestrial biodiversity, play a significant role in the resilience of the tropical forests.
Plant-Animal Impact on Amazon's Degrading Forests
In the agricultural frontier between Amazonia, which covers about 40% of the South American continent, and Cerrado in the South American savannas, climate change, defaunation, and fragmentation are degrading forests. One factor in the types of forests that will survive these threats is the interaction between animals and plants. A YSE-led team of scientists was awarded a $2.45 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study to these critical plant-animal interactions and how they impact the resilience of tropical forests.
As part of the study, the team, which includes Paulo Brando, associate professor of ecosystem carbon capture; Liza Comita, professor of Tropical Forest Ecology and co-director of the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture; Craig Brodersen, professor of plant physiological ecology; and scientists from 13 institutions, will produce Amazon-wide modeling projections of how fragmentation and defaunation may impact the future trajectory of forests in the region.
The Amazon, home to 25% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, has already lost about 20% of its original area.
“If the animals were to disappear from tropical forests, how would that shape the future of those forests, as well as their capacity to provide key ecosystem services such as carbon storage and water cycling?” Brando said.
The findings of the study will have broader implications, including better quantification of the services that animal species provide in keeping forests healthy; the consequences of forest collapse on forest-dependent peoples; and how future development in the region may impact the biodiversity of Amazonian forests, Brando said.
Paulo Brando
Associate Professor of Ecosystem Carbon Capture
More News in Brief
Fenichel Paper Honored for Enduring Impact on Epidemic Modeling
Eli Fenichel, the Knobloch Family Professor of Natural Resource Economics, and co-authors have been awarded the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association’s 2025 Paper of Enduring Quality Award for their 2011 PNAS paper on integrating human behavior into models of infectious disease. The study laid key foundations for interdisciplinary research, bridging economics and epidemiology—an approach that proved critical during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I saw a lot of epidemiologists and economists recommending it to each other to figure out how to collaborate on COVID-19 research,” Fenichel said. “I think it set a benchmark for interdisciplinary research on epidemics.”
The award will be presented at the AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, on July 28.
Eli Fenichel
Knobloch Family Professor of Natural Resource Economics
Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture-related Nonprofit Wins Global Carbon Removal Prize
Mati Carbon, an environmental nonprofit that builds on enhanced rock weathering research by scientists at the Yale School of the Environment and Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture (YCNCC), won the $50 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal international competition for pioneering a crushed-rock solution that pulls carbon from the air and restores farmland.
Noah Planavsky, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences, who is a faculty member at YCNCC and head of Mati Carbon’s scientific advisory board, developed methods to track carbon fluxes that the nonprofit used in pilot programs concentrated on small farms in the Global South. More than 1,300 groups from 88 countries took part in the competition, which required teams to create and demonstrate a system for pulling CO2 directly from the atmosphere or oceans and durably sequester it.
Part of a suite of natural carbon solutions, enhanced rock weathering has been a focus of research by Peter Raymond, the Oastler Professor of Biogeochemistry at YSE, who will become director of YCNCC on June 30, and James Saiers, the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Hydrology, who also serves on YCNCC’s leadership.
All Communication Is Local
As local governments increasingly address the need to build climate resiliency and adapt effective climate mitigation strategies, it is vital that they develop and implement effective communication plans. However, climate communication has not always been a priority, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC). A discussion hosted by YPCCC on April 15, 2025, explored effective communication strategies being employed by municipal communications officials around the country. The key, the officials said, is to embed communications at the beginning of an initiative and make climate mitigation efforts relevant to the daily lives of community members by connecting the initiatives to efficient and cheaper energy bills, job creation, and healthier air.
“Instead of being conceptual and abstract about decarbonization, tell a story about actual people who are making their house efficient and saving money. These kinds of stories consistently connect with people across the political spectrum and across levels of understanding and engagement on climate change,” said Julia Trezona Peek, chief strategy and partnership officer at the Urban Sustainability Directors Network.
Credit: Denver Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency