{"id":880142,"date":"2026-10-12T22:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T22:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/880142\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T22:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T22:08:11","slug":"thats-just-insane-elephant-dies-in-south-africa-and-scientists-are-stunned-at-what-happens-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/880142\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThat’s just insane.\u201d Elephant dies in South Africa \u2013 and scientists are stunned at what happens next"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2009, a large, lone elephant called Alexander died beside a road in South Africa\u2019s Kruger National Park. Over the next few months, researcher Dave Thompson watched what happened to the carcass and wondered how it was affecting the savannah. <\/p>\n

Now, research inspired by that thought has found that elephant carcasses can continue to shape ecosystems for years.<\/p>\n

Thompson passed Alexander\u2019s body regularly, en route to a different project. \u201cWatching the decomposition of that carcass got me curious,\u201d says Thompson, from the South African Environmental Observation Network. So, a project was born.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In life, elephants are ecosystem engineers<\/a>. When they munch plants, fell trees, disperse seeds, fertilise the soil and trample the ground, they create opportunities for other species to thrive. But what happens to that influence when an elephant<\/a> dies?<\/p>\n

When a whale dies<\/a> and sinks to the bottom of the ocean, its carcass can become a rich source of nutrients, sustaining life for decades. Thompson wondered if something similar was happening on land.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To find out, researchers studied elephant carcasses of different ages, measuring changes in the soil, microbes, plants and grazing animals around them. The results are published in the\u00a0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A herd of elephants makes its way through Kruger National Park in South Africa. Credit: Freemanfootage\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

What happens after an elephant dies?<\/p>\n

Initially, plant life was snuffed out. Nutrients from the body leached into the ground, affecting the soil chemistry. Around fresh carcasses, nitrogen concentrations were up to 3,000 times higher than normal. \u201cThat amount of ammonium was not on my bingo card,\u201d says Tercia Midzi, who works at Kruger National Park. Levels were so high that plants struggled to grow.<\/p>\n

Soil-dwelling bacteria were affected too. Although their diversity went down, the activity of those that survived rocketed, as a few fast-growing species became dominant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Elephant\u00a0\u201cAt really fresh carcass sites, soil nitrogen concentrations can be up to 3,000 times higher,\u201d says the study’s lead author,\u00a0Courtney Reed. \u201cThat’s just insane.\u201d Credit: Simon Skafar\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Plants showed a similar pattern. Once the soil chemistry mellowed, plant diversity remained low, with a handful of nutritious, fast-growing species taking over. The carcass \u201cturns these grasses from watery iceberg lettuce into a juicy romaine,\u201d says Deron Burkepile from UC Santa Barbara.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This did not go unnoticed. Herbivores repeatedly returned to feed on the nutritious grasses, while their manure added yet more nutrients to the soil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The effects persisted for at least eight years, revealing a previously overlooked way that elephants shape ecosystems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such a powerful reminder that what we see in nature is often shaped by legacies from the past,\u201d says Izak Smit from South African National Parks, \u201ceven when the causes of those legacies have long since disappeared from view.\u201d<\/p>\n

More wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2009, a large, lone elephant called Alexander died beside a road in South Africa\u2019s Kruger National Park.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-880142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}