Birds May Help Forests Stay Cool

Missing birds may mean warmer forests for Guam.

The Mariana fruit-dove鈥攗nmistakable with puffs of vibrant colors across its chest and crest鈥攖oday lives mostly in zoos and on four small Pacific islands. The pigeon disappeared from Guam, along with nine other native birds, eliminated by voracious brown tree snakes that likely arrived on ships after World War II. Scientists are starting to piece together the effects of their loss鈥攁mong them the possibility of a thinning forest canopy increasingly riddled with holes, like Swiss cheese. They hypothesize that without birds to disperse seeds, fast-growing 鈥減ioneer鈥 plants鈥攍ike papaya and sumac trees鈥攚on鈥檛 fill the gaps.

To test their theory, they鈥檙e clearing small patches in Guam鈥檚 canopy and those of other bird-rich islands nearby, then tracking how quickly pioneer plants fill in the blank spots. Without a鈥╢ull canopy, the forest may鈥╞e heating up, threatening wildlife and trees that thrive in cooler temperatures. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very important to understand the implications of those [bird] declines,鈥 says Rice University ecologist Amy Dunham. 鈥淭he situation on Guam鈥攚hich is tragic鈥攑rovides us with鈥╝ unique opportunity to鈥╯ee what happens when鈥╝ll seed-dispersal services provided by animals are lost from an entire ecosystem.鈥 And to help build a case for preventing such losses elsewhere.

This story originally ran in the July-August 2013 issue as "Missing Pigeons."