Toucans wearing GPS backpacks help Smithsonian scientists study seed dispersal

Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 13:40 in Biology & Nature

Nutmeg-loving toucans wearing GPS transmitters recently helped scientists in Panama address an age-old problem in plant ecology: accurately estimating seed dispersal. The tracking data revealed what scientists have long suspected, that toucans are excellent seed dispersers, particularly in the morning; also, for the first time, the data enabled researchers to create a map of the relative patterns and distances that toucans distribute the seeds of a nutmeg tree.

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