Group items tagged

"Brandt's bat, a species not identified by science until 1970 and not seen in Ireland since 2003, has been declared probably extinct."

"New research indicates that the middle [of the food chain] -small insectivorous birds and lizards-are critically important to overall health of an ecosystem, and actually help promote greater biomass." "Gruner and a team of other researchers looked at more than 100 studies insect predation by birds, bats or lizards and found that, regardless of the predator in question, their presence was associated with a 40 percent reduction in damage to plants. In turn, a healthy population of insectivores was linked to a 14 percent increase in plant biomass."

Here is the list: Cuban crocodile, Grenada dove, Florida bonneted bat, Green-eyed frog, Hirola, Ploughshare tortoise, Island gray fox, Sumatran orangutan, Vanquita, White-headed langur.

The seed dispersal activities of many animals is essential for the Amazon and other forests, because, as Anderson explains: "plants rely on the seed dispersal activities of these animals (i.e. birds, bats, monkeys, tapirs, rodents, and fish) to move seeds away from the mother tree to good sites for germination […] For pioneer species like Cecropia (a genus of tree that we studied), seeds might need light gaps to germinate-that is, seeds might have very specific requirements for germination."