Portrait of a Sulawesi black-crested macaque (Macaca nigra) sitting on a branch of a tree in Tangkoko Nature Reserve, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Protecting wildlife across the world could significantly enhance natural carbon capture and storage by supercharging ecosystem carbon sinks, according to Oswald J. Schmitz, the Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology at Yale School of the Environment, as published on Phys.Org on March 28, 2023. Wildlife species, throughout their interaction with the environment, are the missing link between biodiversity and climate, Schmitz says.

Portrait of a Sulawesi black-crested macaque (Macaca nigra) sitting on a branch of a tree in Tangkoko Nature Reserve, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Protecting wildlife across the world could significantly enhance natural carbon capture and storage by supercharging ecosystem carbon sinks, according to Oswald J. Schmitz, the Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology at Yale School of the Environment, as published on Phys.Org on March 28, 2023._Wildlife species, throughout their interaction with the environment, are the missing link between biodiversity and climate, Schmitz says. Stock Photo
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Image details

Contributor:

Pacific Imagica / Alamy Stock Photo

Image ID:

2R78K6P

File size:

44.8 MB (1.5 MB Compressed download)

Releases:

Model - no | Property - noDo I need a release?

Dimensions:

3229 x 4844 px | 27.3 x 41 cm | 10.8 x 16.1 inches | 300dpi

Date taken:

18 January 2012

Location:

Tangkoko Nature Reserve, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

More information:

This image could have imperfections as it’s either historical or reportage.

Portrait of a Sulawesi black-crested macaque (Macaca nigra) sitting on a branch of a tree in Tangkoko Nature Reserve, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Protecting wildlife across the world could significantly enhance natural carbon capture and storage by supercharging ecosystem carbon sinks, according to Oswald J. Schmitz, the Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology at Yale School of the Environment, as published on Phys.Org on March 28, 2023._Wildlife species, throughout their interaction with the environment, are the missing link between biodiversity and climate, Schmitz says. This interaction means rewilding can be among the best nature-based climate solutions available to humankind._The study, conducted and co-authored by 15 scientists from eight countries, was first published in Nature Climate Change. It reveals that wild animals play a critical role controlling the carbon cycle in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems through a wide range of processes including foraging, nutrient deposition, disturbance, organic carbon deposition, and seed dispersal._The report points out that endangering animal populations to the point where they become extinct could flip the ecosystems they inhabit from carbon sinks to carbon sources.

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