Photo by loren chipman licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Recent research suggests that certain duck species are crucial for maintaining wetland plant diversity in highly fragmented landscapes. Functioning wetlands are becoming more and more isolated each year. As more land is gobbled up for farming and development, the ability for plants to get their seeds into new habitats is made even more difficult. Luckily, many plants utilize animals for this job. Seeds can become stuck in fur or feathers, and some can even pass through the gut unharmed. What's more, animals can move great distances in a short amount of time. For wetland plants, the daily movements of ducks seems to be paramount.

By tracking the daily movements of mallards, a team of researchers from Utretch University were able to quantify how crucial these water fowl are for moving seeds around. What they found was quite remarkable. In autumn and winter, the diet of mallards switches over to seeds. Not all seeds that a mallard eats get digested. Many pass through the gut unharmed. Additionally, mallards are strong flyers. On any given day they can travel great distances in search of winter foraging grounds. In the evenings, they return to roosting sites with a high degree of fidelity.

The research team was able to demonstrate that their movements cover even greater distances in highly fragmented landscapes. It's these daily migrations that are playing a major role in maintaining plant diversity between distant wetlands. This is especially important for wetlands that function as roost sites. Whereas mallards distribute around 7% of the surviving seeds they eat among foraging sites, that number jumps to 34% for surviving seeds at roost sites. Given the sheer number of mallards on the landscape, these estimates can really add up.

It is likely that without mallards, North American wetlands would be much less diverse given their increasingly isolated nature. However, not all seeds are dispersed equally. Small seeds are far more likely to pass through the gut of a duck unharmed, meaning only a portion of the plant species that grow in these habitats are getting a helping hand (wing?). Still, the importance of these birds cannot be overlooked. The next time you see a mallard, thank it for maintaining wetland plant diversity.

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