Harvard, UMiami Researchers Debunk Ecuador Mass Extinction Event in New Study

Scientists debunked a widely accepted mass extinction of 90 plant species in Ecuador’s Centinela cloud forests in the 1980s, per an October research paper published in Nature Plants.

Researchers from Harvard, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the University of Miami, and the Universidad de Las Américas found the majority of species from the supposed extinction — one of the most scientifically notorious in modern times — still exist in forest remnants.

The researchers used a combination of biodiversity databases, natural history museums, and field work in Centinela to highlight the importance of conserving ecosystems and promoting biodiversity.

Kenneth J. Feeley, a co-author on the study and professor of Tropical Biology at the University of Miami, pointed to the extensive work required for this study — and the need for similar efforts for other plant life.

“It took a lot of work to figure out whether these species are still alive or not,” Feeley said. “And that’s not being done for most species, right? We just don’t know.”

Feeley also pointed to the “critical” role new, large-scale databases played in facilitating their research.

“Using these new tools, you can bring that all together and get a much more comprehensive look at what’s going on than you could actually just being in the jungle in a single spot,” he said.

Dawson M. White, another co-author on the study and postdoctoral fellow in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at the Harvard University Herbaria, said the study “highlights how important it is in areas of such extreme biodiversity to still be pushing forward with those fundamental objectives of exploration and species collection.”

The research involved exploring, surveying, and discovering new species in Centinela. In the years ahead, White said, people must work to plant and reforest endangered or critically endangered individual trees, shrubs, and other plant life.

“There are still new species to be found, and still very much a lot to conserve,” he said. “There’s still time to turn it around and turn this into a conservation story.”

Joan Edwards, a professor of biology at Williams College who was not involved in the research, applauded the study.

“They did an excellent job, and they had knowledgeable people,” Edwards said. “The training it takes to be able to identify tropical plants is huge.”

Still, Edwards said she worries that in the future, fewer researchers will be able to recognize plant species.

“It really takes a trained eye, and I am really worried in our current world that we’re losing people that can do this,” she said.

Edwards also stressed the importance of conserving the biodiversity of forests like the cloud forests of Ecuador.

“Everybody knows climate change is the problem unless you are a climate change denier,” she said. But what can be “surprising to most people — the other great environmental crisis is the loss of biodiversity” for maintaining food supply and the environment.

“Saving this little patch of rainforest and the biodiversity that’s in it is critical for our own lives, even if it’s in South America,” Edwards said.