Megacarcass manuscript published in Biogeosciences!

Our first manuscript for the megacarcass ecology project was recently published in Biogeosciences. We demonstrate that soil nitrogen, phosphate, and microbial respiration are elevated at elephant carcass sites. Plants take up these carcass-derived nutrients from the soil, resulting in grass with high concentrations of nitrogen and micronutrients such as iron, potassium, and magnesium. This research shows how elephant megacarcasses generate hotspots of nutrient-rich vegetation on the savanna. The manuscript is open-access and available here if you want to read more about it!

Reed, C. G., Budny, M. L., du Toit, J. T., Helcoski, R., Schimel, J. P., Smit, I. P. J., Strydom, T., Tallian, A., Thompson, D. I., van Coller, H., Lemoine, N. P., and Burkepile, D. E.: Elephant megacarcasses increase local nutrient pools in African savanna soils and plants, Biogeosciences, 22, 1583–1596, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-1583-2025, 2025.