The dawn of zoogeochemistry

Ecologists are blazing trails in a new field they've dubbed zoogeochemistry, which explores how animals influence nutrient cycling and carbon entering and exiting their ecosystems. Through everyday behaviors like foraging, defecation, and cooling off in ponds, animals can have outsize impacts on their environments, even altering greenhouse gas emissions. Although the field is in its infancy, researchers have already noted variations in animal behaviors as climate change throws age-old temperature and precipitation patterns out of whack. Collecting data on species-driven impacts could help ecologists better balance climate change mitigation and ecosystem restoration efforts. Zoogeochemists are now tasked with communicating the complexity of these interrelationships while avoiding reductionist interpretations of their findings. Chris Dutton is used to broken equipment. In the years he's spent analyzing the creatures of the Mara River basin in Africa, his cameras and sensors have been tusked by elephants, crushed by hippos, and mauled by predatory cats.