New in Wildlife Science: Coronavirus in Deer & More

Tracking the coronavirus’ evolution in deer; how wildlife help forests store carbon; an extinction crisis among amphibians; mosses, the lifeblood of ecosystems

By Mark Wexler
Wildlife Science
Jun 27, 2024

Wildlife Help Forests Store Carbon

Could cracking down on poaching in the tropics also help fight climate change? Yes, according to recent research by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) scientists. In a study published in PLOS Biology, they report that many of the mammals and birds frequently killed by illegal and commercial hunters in tropical forests are either fruit eaters that disperse seeds from big trees with high carbon storage capacity or are browsers that help those big trees thrive by thinning the underbrush. As hunters reduce the numbers of animals such as elephants, apes, hornbills and toucans (plate-billed mountain-toucan in Ecuador, above), the trees those animals benefit may also dwindle. In their place, small-seeded or wind-dispersed trees with lower wood density—and thus less carbon storage capacity—can become more prevalent. Globally, intact tropical forests remove and store an estimated 3.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually. “Animals have a vital role in maintaining the integrity of such forests,” says co-author John Robinson of WCS. “Maintaining intact faunas is therefore a critical component of any strategy to conserve forests to address climate change.”

An image of a while-tailed deer fawn standing among wildflowers and long grass.

Coronavirus Evolves in Deer

Across Ohio, dozens of white-tailed deer (above) have been infected with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19—and the pathogen is evolving about three times faster in deer than in humans, researchers report in Nature Communications. In early 2022, veterinary scientists at The Ohio State University (OSU) collected 1,522 nasal swabs from wild deer in 83 of the state’s 88 counties. They found that more than 10 percent of the animals carried the virus. Through genetic analyses, the researchers also discovered that many of the infections in deer had been passed to them by humans. “We generally talk about interspecies transmission as a rare event, but this wasn’t a huge sampling, and we were able to document 30 spillovers,” says co-author and OSU veterinary medicine professor Andrew Bowman. “Evidence is growing that humans can get [COVID-19] from deer,” he adds. “It’s probably not a one-way pipeline.” With white-tailed deer serving as reservoirs for both old and new coronavirus variants, “understanding how the virus is mutating in deer populations is important for human health,” Bowman says.

An image of moss covered woodland.

Mighty Mosses: ‘Lifeblood’ of Ecosystems

In a recent global study, more than 50 scientists collected samples of mosses growing on soils in 123 different ecosystems—from rainforests to polar landscapes—on every continent (Germany, above). “We wanted to look at what these plants actually do, in terms of providing essential services to the environment,” says lead author David Eldridge, a biologist at Australia’s University of New South Wales. “And we were gobsmacked to find they were doing all these amazing things.” Using molecular and chemical analyses, the scientists analyzed how other plants and soils benefit from mosses. Writing in Nature Geoscience, they report that levels of soil health, nutrient cycling, decomposition of organic matter and the control of pathogens harmful to plants and people were significantly higher in moss-covered soil than in soil where no mosses grew. With some 12,000 species worldwide, mosses, the scientists say, are the “lifeblood” of many ecosystems.

An image of a webbed harlequin frog.

Microscope

Vanishing Amphibians

A team of international scientists reports in Nature that two in five of the planet’s amphibian species are now threatened with extinction (including the webbed harlequin frog, pictured), making them among Earth’s most imperiled animal groups.