Hunting out the big fruit-eaters costs a rainforest about 3% of its carbon — and nothing visible happens

What changed, when, and why each change was an improvement. Oldest first.

1. Version 1May 31, 2026 at 22:49Felix Dray184 words

   First published.

   The version this publication started from. Recorded when the ledger was built, on 20 August 2026, so the archive has a floor rather than appearing unedited.

2. Version 2August 21, 2026 at 07:13Felix Dray637 words

   Rewritten from 136 words to 641 around Chanthorn and colleagues, Scientific Reports 2019, which mapped the seed-dispersal network of a 30-hectare plot in central Thailand and simulated removing the large frugivores: trees dependent on those animals hold nearly a third of above-ground carbon, and complete defaunation reduces stored carbon by 2.4 to 3.0 percent, exceeding one percent once defaunation passes forty percent. The original claimed the canopy 'collapses' and cited nothing.

   We overstated it, and in the direction that makes a story easier to tell. Three percent is not a collapse — it is a substitution, an old dense forest quietly becoming a young light one with the same outline. That is harder to campaign about and more alarming in one specific way, because nothing visible happens and so nothing triggers a response. Correcting an exaggeration matters as much as correcting an error; a publication that only ever revises upward is not measuring anything.

Every edit to every piece →