Plant Growth Aided by Insect-Feeding Animals

Add insect-feeding birds, bats and lizards to the front lines of the battle against global climate change.


Summarizing the results of more than 100 experiments conducted on four continents, UC Irvine ecologist Kailen A. Mooney and colleagues found that these insect-gobbling animals increase plant growth by reducing the abundance of plant-feeding insects and the damage they do to the plant life that helps mitigate global warming.

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An Eastern Bluebird consumes a meal of leaf-eating caterpillar. (Credit: Photo by Mike Onyon)

Our efforts solidify the importance of birds, bats, lizards and other similar animals to ecosystem health, and underscores the importance of conserving these species in the face of global change," said Mooney, an assistant professor in ecology and evolutionary biology.

The results come at a time when the importance of birds and other insectivores as plant protectors has come into doubt, Mooney added. Studies on bird, bat and lizard diets show they devour both plant-feeding insects and the spiders and other insect predators that eat plant feeders.

Recognizing these complex feeding relationships, Mooney said it had become unclear whether animals like birds reduce plant-feeding insect populations, or whether they might in fact be protecting them from spiders and the like.

"It has long been hypothesized that birds and other insect-feeding animals may protect plants by keeping plant-feeding insects in check in accordance with the adage, 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,' " Mooney said. "Our study provides the most comprehensive support of this hypothesis to date. It shows that despite feeding on predatory insects, birds, bats and lizards still act as plant protectors by having net negative effects on plant-feeding insects."

Study results appear in early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of April 5.

Daniel S. Gruner of the University of Maryland; Nicholas A Barber of the University of Missouri, St. Louis; Sunshine A. Van Bael of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama; Stacy M. Philpott of the University of Toledo; and Russell Greenberg of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Washington, D.C., contributed to this study.

Those birds aren't crazy, they're drunk

February 20, 2010: The cold snap has brought an usual effect to part of Florida: drunken birds. They are flying into car windshields and house doors, and making messes on vehicles, according to floridatoday.com.

Florida Today talked with some experts and learned that the birds are getting inebriated on berries left fermenting on the vine. When it gets really cold, plants stop sending nutrients to limbs, leaving the berries to rot).

Dane Culbert of the University of Florida’s extension service said he has seen hundreds of orange-breasted robins congregating in his yard in the past two weeks. “They were coming through, and it’s like, ‘Where’s Alfred Hitchcock?’ ”

"So the next time you are sitting at the police station and performing your breath analyzer test for the third time, be sure to announce that you had consumed several drunken "Robins" for dinner and you are suffering from a severe contact drunk from the birds". ~ Jim (also be sure to have a few Robin feathers to shove in your mouth just prior to the arresting officer approaching your vehicle...it may add more weight to your absurd claim)