麻豆淫院

When Taylor Guitars acquired an ebony mill in Cameroon to supply wood for their renowned acoustic guitars, owner Bob Taylor wanted to give back by planting new trees, even knowing they could take 60鈥�200 years to grow. But scientists knew surprisingly little about the trees鈥攏ot how many there were, how long they lived or even how to grow one, despite a 200-year history of craftsmen using the wood for piano keys and fretboards for guitars, violins and other stringed instruments.

While Taylor was working on his idea, he was introduced to UCLA professor and conservation ecologist Thomas Smith, founder of UCLA's Congo Basin Institute, who was focused on understanding and conserving the rainforest鈥攊ncluding studying the role of animals in dispersing seeds and regenerating the rainforest.

As a result, a nine-year partnership called The Ebony Project was born to work with the Indigenous Baka people and other local communities.

In newly published in Science Advances, they're sharing their discovery: the key to growing ebony trees is endangered African forest elephants.

Why elephants are important to the ecosystem

Elephants eat the fruits from ebony and other trees, carrying the seeds in their digestive tracts for miles before depositing them, still intact, on the forest floor. Surrounded by elephant dung, and without the edible fruit the seeds come encased in, the researchers found the ebony seeds were protected from rodents that would otherwise eat them.

Studies show that the illegal ivory trade has driven an 86% decline in forest elephant populations over the past three decades. In forest regions without elephants, the study found 68% fewer ebony saplings.

"People think, 'Oh, it's a shame these magnificent creatures are threatened,' but what they don't understand is that we won't just lose elephants, we'll also lose the ecological functions they provide," said Smith, senior author of the study and a UCLA distinguished research professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

"Forest elephants are a keystone species that disperse the seeds of both large and small rainforest trees. If they go extinct, we risk losing the ecological processes that sustain rainforests."

In addition to germinating less often, genetic testing revealed that the trees from areas without elephants became more inbred, growing in clusters where seeds dropped near parent trees, instead of miles away, where different gene pools could potentially mix. With a smaller range, the trees will lose genetic diversity, making them more vulnerable to disease and the impacts of climate change, Smith said.

"In other words, when elephants are removed from the ecosystem, ebony populations will severely decline and may ultimately collapse," Smith said.

"In African rainforests, 80%鈥�90% of trees are dispersed by vertebrates鈥攊ncluding great apes, birds, bats and antelopes. Without these species, the forests will eventually disappear. Our team has published numerous papers on the role of vertebrates in these processes, but we believe the focus on two emblematic species in this paper may help communicate the urgency."

In rainforests that have already lost their megafauna, like the giant ground sloths that once roamed the Amazon, trees with large seeds are only found in dwindling patches, Smith said鈥攎uch like what researchers are starting to see with the ebony trees in the Congo rainforest. There, elephants are already absent from at least 65% of the ebony trees' historical range.

The importance of local and Indigenous knowledge

The UCLA-led study included authors from universities and institutes in Cameroon, Australia and four countries in Europe, as well as co-authors from rural Bantu and Indigenous Baka communities.

As part of the research, UCLA's Congo Basin Institute provided local communities with fruit-tree saplings, ebony tree seeds, training and plant nurseries. The fruit trees provide food and income, and local and Indigenous people joined the effort to grow ebony saplings from seeds. All the trees belong to the locals.

"My long view is that this project offers a grassroots approach to rainforest restoration," Smith said.

Working with the Indigenous Baka as escorts into the rainforest, the researchers mapped sections of the forest, marking the number and size of ebony trees, along with other trees valuable to the Baka and Bantu. In fruiting season, they collected the seeds and looked for evidence of animals eating the fruit, said the study's lead author, Vincent Deblauwe, a UCLA tropical forest ecologist and researcher with the Congo Basin Institute.

"When we did forest inventories to identify where ebony seedlings, saplings and trees grew, we weren't expecting to see large geographic differences," Deblauwe said.

"But there was an obvious line between protected regions and hunted regions, with practically no young saplings in the parts of the forest without elephants. The few saplings we found there were clustered below the parent trees, as if no animals ever came to eat the fruits and disperse the seeds."

Deblauwe recalled asking the Baka for their theories. Co-author Gaston Guy Mempong, a Baka elder, was among the group that discussed the issue and responded that it was probably because there were no more elephants in the hunting zones. The Baka explained that they had seen ebony seedlings germinating in elephant dung, Deblauwe said.

The research is the first to identify the indispensable role of elephants in the natural regeneration of ebony. has planted 40,000 ebony trees and 20,000 fruit trees, which are already bearing both literal and figurative fruit.

"I've spent my life building guitars and growing a guitar company, but being part of The Ebony Project has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life," Taylor said. "It reminds me that sometimes the most important work is about planting seeds for others to benefit from."

Taylor has been and remains the primary funder for The Ebony Project, bolstering support for local communities and rainforest reforestation.