Dr Lizzie Wandrag ‘The impact of bird loss on tropical forests: a case study from Guam’

The introduction of the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) to the Pacific island of Guam has led to the functional extirpation of the entire native avifauna on the island. This has potentially serious consequences for the forests present on Guam because the majority of Guam’s tree species rely on birds for the dispersal of their seeds. However, it is hard to predict what these consequences might be because we know very little about just how important seed dispersal is. We set out to examine the extent to which the loss of seed dispersal by native birds has influenced the ability of Guam’s forests to recover from disturbance. To do this we examined forest recovery following disturbance on Guam and compared it with that on the nearby islands of Saipan and Rota, which both support the same forest communities but have more intact assemblages of native birds. We find that both the species composition of forests and their physical regeneration following disturbance are altered in the absence of seed dispersal. These results not only indicate that bird loss has had considerable impacts on the forests of Guam due to the loss of the dispersal services they provide, but also highlight the importance of seed dispersal in structuring tropical forests more generally

Lizzie is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Plant Invasion Ecology at the University of Canberra. Prior to coming to the University of Canberra, Lizzie completed her Master’s degree at the University of Aberdeen and had previously studied at the University of Stirling in Scotland.  Lizzie did her PhD in Ecology at the University of Lincoln in England