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 18 ripple effects DHJanzen100680.jpg high resolution
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But the re-emergence of the Crescentia alata population across the Mesoamerican landscape from 1500 to the present, and its subsquent demise, is not a play with just two actors. The flowers of Crescentia alata are greenish, large and open at night. They have a heavy, foetid odor. These are commonplace traits of bat-pollinated flowers. When Crescentia is in flower, it is a major food source for Glossophaga soricina (Phyllostomatidae) bats, bats that are certainly more abundant with this large food source than they would have been in its absence. And, with the demise of the horse, and hence Crescentia, the Glossophaga population will take a hit as well. Incidentally, the loss of Crescentia alata flowers will not only mean a lowering of the food resources available to the Glossophaga bats, but may well mean the loss of flowers at a particular time of year (C. alata flowers 13 days after a heavy rain), which could well mean that the bats simply cannot exist in a particular area at all, or must migrate out of that area in the absence of C. alata flowers. |
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