them to compare patterns of resistance, recovery time, and return rates to old- growth conditions across a broad swath of biodiversity. Teir findings reveal a striking degree
of resilience. Across the full dataset, abundance and diversity recovered more than 90%, and community composition reached approximately 75% similarity to old-growth forest within about 30 years. Full recovery, however, requires several additional decades, underscoring that while secondary forests can rebound impressively, they do not quickly become ecological equivalents of old- growth systems. One of the most intriguing results
concerns differences among taxa. Mobile animal groups—particularly seed dispersers and pollinators—showed high resistance to disturbance and recovered more rapidly than trees or seedlings. Teir mobility appears to buffer them against habitat change, enabling them to recolonize regenerating forests quickly. In contrast, plant communities, especially tree seedlings, recovered more slowly, reflecting the longer generation times and more complex establishment requirements of woody vegetation. Te study also found that return rates
contributed 1–2.5 times more than resistance to overall recovery times, suggesting that the speed at which species recolonize and reassemble is more important than their initial persistence through disturbance. Notably, taxon-specific recovery times could not be predicted by simple traits such as trophic level, mobility, or life-
history strategy, indicating that recovery is shaped by more complex ecological interactions. Ultimately, Metz et al. demonstrate
the enormous potential of naturally regenerating secondary forests to reverse biodiversity loss—provided they are protected and allowed to mature. Teir work highlights both the resilience of tropical ecosystems and the long-term commitment required to restore them.
California’s iconic Joshua trees are disappearing. Can fungi save them?
T
he above headline by Alex Wigglesworth in the May 19, 2026 edition of the Los Angeles Times
newspaper certainly got my attention. During a brief, two-year stay in Southern California I got to visit (and fell in love with) Joshua Tree National Park, home to their namesake iconic trees. California’s Joshua trees—those spiky,
otherworldly sentinels of the Mojave— are slipping toward ecological crisis. Once resilient fixtures of the desert, they are now facing a convergence of pressures that even their long evolutionary history cannot withstand. Wildfires, especially the 2020 Dome Fire and the 2023 York Fire, have erased millions of trees in just a few seasons, leaving vast burn scars where forests once stood. In the Mojave National Preserve alone, the Dome Fire killed an
estimated 1.3 million Joshua trees, and replanting efforts have fared poorly: only about 23% of the 3,622 seedlings planted between 2021 and 2024 have survived, creating what land managers describe as “graveyards of seedlings” rather than recovering woodlands . Te excellent Los Angeles Times
story follows scientists who believe the key to reversing this decline lies not aboveground but beneath the desert’s sunbaked surface. Researchers from the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) and USC are collecting soil from around both thriving and dying seedlings, searching for patterns in the fungal communities that might explain why some young Joshua trees persist while most fail. Field scientist Anne Polyakov describes each soil sample as “a whole world… invisible,” hinting at the vast, hidden networks of mycorrhizal fungi that may determine whether a seedling lives or dies. Peer-reviewed studies support this line of inquiry. Research shows that Joshua tree seedlings respond dramatically to the fungal partners they encounter: some fungi act as mutualists that help roots access scarce water and nutrients, while others behave more parasitically, stunting growth. A 2021 PLoS ONE study (Harrower and Gilbert; 2021; “Parasitism to mutualism continuum for Joshua trees inoculated with different communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi from a desert elevation gradient;” PLoS ONE 16(8): e0256068. https://
doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256068) found that fungal communities shift with
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6 FUNGI Volume 19:2 Summer 2026
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