Save the rhino, save the plant
Sumatran rhinos spread seeds. Without them some plants may vanish
ALL SPECIES of rhinoceros are in trouble, as poachers kill them to take their horns. But Sumatran rhinos are in extremis. Fewer than 80 remain alive, and that handful is scattered between three groups in Sumatra and one in Borneo. This is terrible news for the species itself. But Kim McConkey and Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz at the University of Nottingham, in Britain, think it has wider ramifications—for, as they explain in a paper in Biotropica, several plant species also depend on Sumatran rhinos for their survival.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Save the rhino, save the plant”
From the January 29th 2022 edition
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