People’s knee-jerk reaction to seeing death in nature is often not positive. The burn scar left by wildfire on a once-forested hillside, or a ghostly white coral reef, may evoke tragedy and despair. But in nature, most plants and animals are recycled back into new life. The fallen branches and leaves that crunch under your boots as you step on the forest floor are providing nutrients for new growth as they decompose. Empty shells can become the foundations for new sea life to grow. Dead organic matter left over after a harvest supports soils and the production of food that feeds people worldwide. These remnants of life can set both the pace and outcome of ecosystem recovery, enabling life to persist and thrive, or preventing it from doing so. Ecologists, like us, refer to this as ecological memory, where remnants of the past influence how ecosystems look and behave in the present. Similar to human memories, traumatic events can have the strongest influences in nature: Fires, storms, heat waves and outbreaks of pests or disease can cause widespread death of plants and animals, leaving behind abundant and lasting physical remains. In a new paper published in Science Advances, working with…
Hospitality
Life after death: From burned trees to bleached corals, how dead organisms live on as the building blocks of new life
Source: The Conversation Environment — CC BY-ND 4.0