Birds are quietly carrying the ingredients of life all over the planet

Birds do far more than sing, scatter seeds and eat insects. A major review of nearly 400 studies, published in Current Biology, shows they also haul life's basic ingredients — nitrogen and phosphorus — across forests, islands, lakes and oceans in their waste. Seabirds feed at sea, then nest on islands, where their droppings enrich the soil and wash into the water, feeding coral reefs and the fish that live there. The help is practical, too: at one seagrass restoration site, simply adding perches attracted birds whose droppings supplied the phosphorus the young plants needed to recover. Protect the birds, the researchers say, and you protect a delivery service that whole ecosystems quietly depend on.

SDG 15 · Life on land