Declines of ebony and ivory are inextricably linked in an African rainforest

Vincent Deblauwe , Matthew Scott Luskin , Serge Désiré Assola, Olivier J. Hardy , Simon Jansen , Céline Loubières , Gaston Guy Mempong, Jean Mathurin Ntsihe, Gilbert Oum Ndjock , Eric Rostand Onguene Kwecheu , Luke L. Powell , Bonaventure Sonké , and Thomas B. Smith

A new publication led by Dr. Vincent Deblauwe, researcher on the Ebony Project team at the Congo Basin Institute (CBI), is now available in Science Advances. The study—“Declines of ebony and ivory are inextricably linked in an African rainforest”—provides compelling evidence that the extermination of African forest elephants is directly impacting the regeneration of ebony trees in the Congo Basin.

The study discovered a critical link between endangered African elephants and threatened ebony trees, which can take 60-200 years to grow, and which provide the wood traditionally used for piano keys, guitars and other instruments.

The research team—comprising Cameroonian, Belgian, American, Austrian scientists, Indigenous community members, and local conservation staff—used population structure analysis, spatial point process modeling, parentage analysis, and ecological trials to demonstrate how the absence of elephants disrupts seed dispersal and forest regeneration.

Read the full article: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ady4392

Published Work 2025

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