We are wired to read death in nature as loss and ending, a tragedy, a sign that something is not right, or a grieving loss.So much so that even if we walk down a burnt area of plants, or a spoiled land, we often associate it with grief or darkBut nature does not work in such straight lines. What looks like the end is often doing something else, beyond what we see on the surface.So does the dead matter really impact what’s alive?
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Dead organisms impact what comes next in nature
A new study published in the journal Science Advances, led by ecologist Kai Kopecky, reveals just how powerfully dead organisms influence what comes next in nature.Ecologists call it “ecological memory,” or the idea that an ecosystem is shaped not only by what’s alive now but also by what came before. When “foundation species” like trees, corals, grasses, and oysters die, their physical remains don’t just vanish. They stay there, and those leftovers can quietly drive what happens next, either helping life bounce back or holding it down.
So, do the dead get in nature’s way?
Sometimes those remains get in the way. In Puerto Rico’s mountain rainforests, hurricanes strip the canopy and bury the forest floor in branches and leaves, blocking the sunlight young seedlings need to grow. On the coral reefs of Moorea in the South Pacific, marine heatwaves bleach and kill coral, and the leftover skeletons give seaweeds the perfect foothold to take over, crowding out new coral and changing a vibrant reef into a kind of underwater ghost town that struggles to recover.
But the dead material can be useful too
In other places, death does the opposite. When hurricanes batter the mangroves of the Florida Everglades, the leaf litter they shed washes into the tangle of roots below, providing a burst of nutrients that speeds new growth.In New England’s hemlock forests, an invasive pest called the woolly adelgid has killed countless trees, yet those standing dead trunks actually help, keeping the ground below cool and sheltered and giving young hemlock saplings a far better chance of surviving.How often does the dead actually help nature?Research on long-term data from 10 ecosystems across the United States, including all from tropical reefs to near-Arctic forests, found that dead foundation species affected the living in nine of them. Only California’s kelp forests showed no real impact. The effects ranged from cutting new growth in half to boosting it twelvefold. As lead author Kai Kopecky said, what stands out is “how commonly and strongly the dead influence the living.“