Our friend Alex Chepstow-Lusty and co-authors have another paper out on the forests of Central Africa in the late Holocene. The import of this latest piece of work is that when the forests bounced back 2000 years ago from the fragmentation caused by climate change 500 years before, they did so at least partly thanks to forest animals. As ever with Alex, poo is involved, on this occasion chimp poo. We can thank it for the spread of oil palm across West Africa, it seems. Chimps and others seed poopers may, alas, not be so helpful for the forest’s recovery from the current, anthropogenically caused climate change.
Chimp poo and palm oil? What’s the connection there really?