Journal article
Energy flows reveal declining ecosystem functions by animals across Africa
- Abstract:
- A key challenge for ecological science is to understand how biodiversity loss is changing ecosystem structure and function at scales that are relevant for policy1. Almost all biodiversity metrics are challenging to disaggregate into animal-mediated ecosystem functions such as pollination, seed and nutrient dispersal, and predation. Here we adopt an ecosystem energetics approach2 as a physically meaningful method of translating animal species composition into a suite of ecosystem functions. Drawing on new datasets that estimate biodiversity intactness and species population densities3,4,5, we quantify historical changes to energy flows through mammal- and bird-mediated ecosystem functions across sub-Saharan Africa. In total, trophic energy flows have decreased by more than one-third. The pattern of decreasing function varies by historical biome, driven by arboreal birds and primates in forests, terrestrial herbivores in grassy systems, and burrowing mammals in arid systems. Functions performed by megafauna in particular have collapsed outside protected areas. Compared with other biodiversity metrics, an energetics approach highlights the ecological importance of smaller animals and keystone species. The results can help practitioners conserve and restore functionally diverse, energetically intact ecosystems across land uses and biomes. By relating biodiversity intactness to energy and material flows, ecosystem energetics can also advance efforts to integrate animal-driven functions into biosphere and earth system models, helping us to understand possible regional or planetary boundaries6 for biodiversity.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 14.1MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41586-025-09660-1
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature More from this journal
- Volume:
- 649
- Issue:
- 8095
- Pages:
- 104–112
- Publication date:
- 2025-10-29
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-09-22
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1476-4687
- ISSN:
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0028-0836
- Language:
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English
- Pubs id:
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2308648
- UUID:
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uuid_0cb6dcd7-2548-4f9e-8396-010ec9066dba
- Local pid:
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pubs:2308648
- Source identifiers:
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W4415668483
- Deposit date:
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2025-11-06
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Loft et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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