Think of a toucan and you’ll probably picture a toco toucan, with its orange bill and white throat. The largest member of the toucan family, the toco toucan (Ramphastos toco) can have a wingspan of more than 1 meter (3 feet) and fly more than 90 meters. On these journeys, it often carries something very precious for the natural regeneration of forests: seeds from the fruit it feeds on. Like toucans, other species of large frugivorous birds — dusky-legged guans, or jacus (Penelope obscura) and curl-crested jays (Cyanocorax cristatellus), among others — contribute to regenerating tropical forests by dispersing seeds on the ground. In doing so, they help increase a forest’s carbon storage by 38%. That’s the finding from a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers working with the Crowther Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, or ETH Zurich. “Reducing deforestation and restoring forests play a fundamental role in decreasing atmospheric carbon and mitigating climate change. However, there are many barriers to large-scale restoration, such as high costs, the level of soil degradation, and the lack of seed banks,” says study co-author Danielle Leal Ramos, an ecologist at São Paulo State University (Unesp). In tropical forests like the Amazon or the Atlantic Forest, she says, most plant species depend on animals to disperse their seeds. In degraded areas, birds fill in this role by transporting and planting seeds. “Our aim [with the study] was to quantify the contribution of fruit-eating birds…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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