The first evidence that the loss of a bird species could damage the prospects of particular plants has heightened fears for vulnerable plants around the world.
Many plants rely on birds to pollinate them and disperse their seeds, so it seems reasonable to assume that if the bird population falls, this will have a knock-on effect on plant species. Now the effect has been seen in a shrub, following the extinction of two birds – the bellbird (Anthornis melanura) and stitchbird (Notiomystis cincta) – on New Zealand’s North Island after rats were introduced there in the 1870s.
The flowering shrub Rhabdothamnus solandri relies on these two birds, as well as two other species, for pollination. Dave Kelly from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and colleagues examined how the plant fared on the North Island compared with how well it was doing on nature reserves on three smaller islands where these birds survive.
Helping hand
The team hand-pollinated flowers on 79 plants throughout the North Island and the three island sanctuaries, and compared their fruit production with untouched flowers in these locations.
Around 70 per cent of the hand-pollinated flowers produced fruit on the North Island and the smaller islands. Without this intervention, only 22 per cent of the flowers on the North Island produced fruit, compared to 58 per cent on the island sanctuaries. North Island fruits were also smaller and, on average, produced 84 per cent less seed than fruits on the smaller islands – a clear sign that their seeds are not getting fully pollinated.
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Reduced seed production is already affecting the Rhabdothamnus solandri population: there are fewer than half as many young plants per adult plant on the North Island compared with the smaller islands.
There’s still time…
Kelly is confident that the lack of pollinating birds is to blame. Field observations showed evidence of birds visiting up to 80 per cent of the flowers on the islands where the bellbird and stitchbird still thrive, but only a quarter of the flowers where these birds had disappeared.
“Plant extinctions tend to be slower than animals, because plants live longer,” says Kelly. “We have time to do something about it,” he says, such as repopulating the North Island with stitchbirds and bellbirds. He estimates that Rhabdothamnus solandri can live for over 150 years.
“This is really compelling,” says Martine Maron, a bird ecologist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Since birds are responsible for pollinating a large proportion of flowering plants, “the problem is likely to be occurring all around the world”, she says.
“It is not just about losing a species from the face of the Earth,” Maron adds. “Losing key species from local areas can results in ecosystem collapse.