With African elephants endangered, a UCLA-led study says their decline could ripple from the rainforest to the concert stage—revealing a critical link between the threatened species and pianos and guitars.
The critical link: ebony, the dense black wood commonly used for piano keys and for guitar and violin fretboards.
Researchers working in the Congo rainforest found 68% fewer young ebony saplings in areas where elephants have been wiped out compared to places where they still roam. Elephants eat ebony fruit, carry the seeds for miles and spread them in their droppings, which helps the seeds survive and sprout away from parent trees.
Scientists say many African rainforest trees depend on animals like elephants to spread seeds; without them, forests—and the specialty woods they produce—could dwindle. Ebony also grows slowly, taking 60 to 200 years to mature.
The nine-year effort, called The Ebony Project, links UCLA’s Congo Basin Institute, the Indigenous Bakapeople and other local communities, and Taylor Guitars, which funded nurseries and fieldwork. The team reports planting 40,000 ebony trees and 20,000 fruit trees, and says it identified how to reliably grow ebony from seed—confirming elephants’ role in that cycle.
“People think it’s a shame these magnificent creatures are threatened, but what they don’t understand is that we won’t just lose elephants, we’ll also lose the ecological functions they provide,” said Thomas Smith, senior author and a UCLA distinguished research professor.
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