Declines in birds and mammals are hampering plants by curbing the dispersal of their seeds, in a 'clear intersection of the biodiversity crisis heavily impacting the climate crisis'
Fricke and his colleagues gathered data on 302 animal species and on the seeds of which plant species they help disperse, combining it with information from field studies including how far the seeds travel and how they survive after passing through animals’ guts.Researchers “are nowhere close” to having evidence for all plant and animal species, says Fricke, so his team relied on machine learning and modelling to fill gaps.
The team found that seed dispersal globally had “steeply declined” compared with a model of a world that hadn’t experienced the bird and mammal losses recorded to date. The individual declines vary, but the biggest were in northern temperate regions rather than the tropics.or even several kilometres a year to be able to thrive in a rapidly warming world, the team also built an index tracking the ability of seed dispersal to outpace plants’ changing local climates.
Fricke says it is notable that the declines in seed dispersal are disproportionately bigger than the animal declines that triggered them. “Animal biodiversity supports climate adaptation for the world’s plants,” says Fricke. “I think this is a really clear intersection of the biodiversity crisis heavily impacting the climate crisis.”
at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, says looking at the impact of animal losses on seed dispersals globally is new and important research. “It shows the power of combining large [biodiversity] data sets”, he says.
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