February 3rd, 2025


General Facts

According to the Birdlife International Organization, the world currently harbors over 11,000 different bird species (Birdlife International, n.d.). In each of their ecosystems, these birds play a crucial role, such as in food chains or waste reduction, while also helping humans through pollinating the plants we rely upon for food or medicine. Through their roles, these birds contribute greatly to overall ecosystem biodiversity, while being a key species in themselves.


What Roles Do Birds Play in Ecosystems?

In any ecosystem, birds act as both prey and predators, providing a needed food source for higher class predators while also helping to control their prey populations, thus creating a delicate prey-predator population balance. Additionally, many bird species help to pollinate a variety of plants, examples being U.S. hummingbirds pollinating wildflowers and Australian honeyeaters pollinating Polynesian heliconias. Through the birds, these plants can then reproduce as pollen is moved from the male parts of plants to the female parts, allowing the plant to become fertilized and later yield fruit and/or seeds. Certain bird species, in the “scavenger” category such as vultures, help to remove dead animals through consumption. For these birds, dead animals act as a key food source, and this process helps to prevent the spread of disease


How Are Birds Under Threat?

As the world’s human population continues to grow, current human civilizations must expand which in many cases involves overtaking animal habitats. In many cases, this expansion greatly harms birds by removing large portions of suitable habitat space, causing birds to begin migrating to other areas. However, these birds may not find habitat space that can meet their needs or in the cases they can find other areas to live in, they can then greatly harm their new ecosystems by taking away habitat space from the native bird species while also increasing competition for resources. Furthermore, humans cause a large degree of pollution. With air pollution, bird species are directly exposed to airborne contaminants that may significantly reduce their populations. Bird populations can also be greatly affected by plastic and chemical pollution as humans tend to dispose of plastics or utilize chemical agricultural substances improperly.


What Must Be Done To Protect Bird Species?

In order to ensure bird populations can continue thriving, conservation efforts are vital. This may involve educating the public on how to incorporate conservation practices into individual lives or by working on reducing air and chemical pollution through discussions with local and state governmental officials. Regardless of the method, it remains certain that bird species must be protected as they hold incredibly important roles in any ecosystem, helping to maintain proper levels of biodiversity around the globe.


Resources:

https://www.birdlife.org/birds/
https://gardens.si.edu/gardens/pollinator-garden/why-what-when-where-who-how-pollination/#:~:text=Pollination%20is%20an%20essential%20part,later%20yields%20fruit%20and%20seeds.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/role-scavengers-carcass-crunching/
https://www.bto.org/understanding-birds/articles/birds-and-pollution