Gavilán (Pentaclethra macroloba), also known as Oil Bean Tree or Pracaxi in South America, is one of the most important—yet least celebrated—trees in Costa Rica's Caribbean lowland rainforests. This legume is often the dominant canopy tree in wet forest communities, where it performs the critical ecological function of nitrogen fixation, feeding nitrogen-poor tropical soils. With its explosive seed pods, distinctive compound leaves, and buttressed trunk, Gavilán shapes the structure and function of Caribbean rainforests. Understanding this tree is key to understanding how these magnificent forests work.

Agoutis and Gavilán have an interesting relationship: The Interaction: - Agoutis eat many Gavilán seeds (predation) - BUT they also cache/bury seeds for later - Many cached seeds are forgotten - Forgotten seeds germinate Net Result: - Agoutis are both predators AND dispersers - They move seeds away from parent (good) - They bury seeds (good for germination) - Net effect: Beneficial to tree Conservation Link: - Where agoutis are hunted out, Gavilán regeneration suffers - Protecting agoutis = protecting forest composition This is why hunting can have cascading effects on forest tree populations!

Walk through a Caribbean lowland rainforest in Costa Rica, and you're walking through Gavilán's domain. This tree—unremarkable to the casual eye, its name unknown to most visitors, its presence simply assumed—is quite possibly the most important organism in the forest. Deep in its roots, symbiotic bacteria are doing the impossible: pulling nitrogen from thin air and transforming it into the building blocks of life. That nitrogen flows outward: into leaves that fall and decay, into soil that feeds neighboring trees, into an ecosystem that couldn't maintain its lush productivity without this quiet engine of fertility. Above ground, Gavilán shapes the forest structure—its buttressed trunks and spreading crowns forming the framework within which countless other species live. And once a year, in the dry season's heat, the forest fills with sounds like distant gunfire: pods exploding, seeds hurtling through the air, the tree's aggressive claim on the future. Understanding Gavilán is understanding how tropical rainforests work—not through spectacular individual trees, but through the slow, persistent, vital processes that make everything else possible.