The cup of coffee you drank this morning was closely tied to the fates of warblers in your home state, and to ecosystem health in Central and South America.
Coffee beans are really seeds from berries that grow on shade-loving understory bushes.
These bushes need the shade of mature trees, the same trees that provide habitat and food for many birds and insects. Coffee plantations have been called one of the most sustainable and environmentally benign agroecosystems in Central America. Many of the migratory birds that brighten North American forests in the summer are included in the long list of species that survive in shaded coffee fields. All this has radically changed in recent years, however. Starting as early as the 1970s, coffee growers began breeding plants that prospered in the full sun, rather than in the shade.