A carnivorous plant has learnt how to communicate with bats

Image: Ch'ien C. Lee/Current Biology

It uses ultrasonic calls to entice bats to sh*t in it.

Scientists have discovered that a species of carnivorous pitcher plant in Borneo has evolved a unique way of enticing bats to roost nearby. But the end goal isn't to eat the flying mammals - instead, Nepenthes hemsleyana stays nourished by digesting their falling droppings. 

So in other words, a plant has worked out how to communicate with a mammal, just to encourage it to poop in its mouth. 

The fascinating mechanism involves special reflector structures on the plants, which bounce bats' ultrasonic calls back at them, luring them to roost in the shade of their leaves.

"With these structures, the plants are able to acoustically stand out from their environments so that bats can easily find them," one of the researchers Michael Schöner, from the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University of Greifswald in Germany, told Jennifer Viegas over at Discovery News. "Moreover, the bats are clearly able to distinguish their plant partner from other plants that are similar in shape, but lack the conspicuous reflector."

Most pitcher plants survive by using slippery nectar to attract ants, termites and other insects onto the rim of their bucket-shaped leaf, where they slip into a pit of deadly digestive acids. Some species can devour up to 6,000 insects an hour.

But Schöner and his team noticed that one particular species in the Borneo jungle was living on nothing but bat droppings, and started wondering what the plant was doing differently to attract so many bats to roost nearby.

To work this out, the researchers used an artificial biomimetic bat head, which could record and play ultrasounds. This allowed them to test whether the pitcher plant was reflecting the bat's calls, and if so, where they were bouncing off from.

Publishing in Current Biology, they found that the plant has uniquely shaped back walls that perfectly reflect a bat's own call back to it. The team then confirmed this by showing that the mammals were more likely to roost on pitcher plants with their reflector structures intact - even when they were hidden - than plants without them.

"Carnivorous plants in general have already solved the problem of nutrient deficiency in a very unusual way by reversing the 'normal system' of animals feeding on plants," Schöner told Viegas. "It is even more astonishing that in the case of N. Hemsleyana, the system is taking a new turn."

"While N. Hemsleyana reduced many insect-attracting traits, it obviously exhibits some traits that are highly attractive for a species that provides the plants with nutrients without being digested by the plant itself," he added.

That's one pretty clever way to make sure you never run out of food.

ORIGINAL: Science Alert

FIONA MACDONALD

13 JUL 2015

No, This Isn't An Alien

Contrary to speculation, a strange-looking animal crawling through the wreckage of a palm plantation is not from another planet. Instead, it is an indication of the tragic status of the one we're on.

The video features a sun bear, which when healthy looks like this:

Credit: Cuson via Shutterstock. What a healthy sun bear looks like.

Exactly why the creature in the video looks more like Gollum is not yet known. However, the plantation workers' response offers some clues.

“We were shocked. None of us has ever seen such thing. One of us then hit the animal until it appeared to have passed out,” a worker told the Borneo Post. “It could be a rare species of bear. When it regained consciousness, we forced it to go back into the jungle.” The video shows the stunned bear fleeing after the attack.

On social media sites, the distressed creature was dubbed the "Malaysian Chupacabra" after the mythical creature some people thought was captured last year. Others opted for an extraterrestrial explanation, apparently convinced space offers more than the incredible diversity of life on Earth. However, the identification as a sun bear has been confirmed bymultiple sources.

Facebook group Nature Talks Back have used the video to draw attention to the plight of animals in Borneo. The extraordinary richness of the rainforests of Borneo are being sacrificed for palm plantations at a terrifying rate, fed by a refusal of many large corporations to pay a premium for sustainably grown palm oil.

Sun bears (Helarctos malayanus) are among the species threatened as a result, having already been wiped out from more than half their previous range. Although hunted commercially on the Southeast Asian mainland, in Borneo the main threat to the sun bear is deforestation, which is simultaneously threatening dozens of other species.

Anyone spurred to action by the piteous sight might wish to start by consuming products made with sustainable palm oil, or avoiding the product entirely. There are also a number of organizations who can use your money to protect sun bears specifically, or the rainforests in which they and so many other species live.

ORIGINAL: IFLS
by Stephen Luntz
March 16, 2015

20 more Orangutans from Nyaru Menteng are are going back Home!

February 7, 2014| Orangutan Release Day 1

What a lovely morning in Nyaru Menteng! Kicking off 2014, today 12 rehabilitant orangutans from Nyaru Menteng started the journey to their real home in the Bukit Batikap Conservation Forest

Despite heavy rainfall in the area surrounding the Quarantine Enclosure in Nyaru Menteng, the orangutan release team was high in spirits, excited to start 2014 the way they ended 2013; releasing more orangutans! The first day of the orangutan releases started with the medical team’s preparation. At 4.15 in the morning the medical team and technicians gathered their equipment from the Nyaru Menteng Clinic and proceeded to the Quarantine Enclosure. It was dark and the rain was still drizzling so preparations for the tranquiliser gun and sedation doses took place under torch light. Vet Agus Fahroni coordinated the vet team who were ready to sedate the orangutans. Before starting the process, the team gathered for the final briefing and group prayer for today’s success.

Today, we were going to release 12 orangutans to Bukit Batikap Conservation Forest. They were divided into two groups; the first group consisted of Zena and her son William, Kitty and her daughter Kate, Dita and her daughter Halt, and Noor. While the second group comprised Judy and her son named Son, Hamlet, Joys, and Sarita.

Zena, William’s lovely Mother, was the first to be sedated, followed by Dita, Noor, and Kitty; the young ones William, Kate, and Halt didn’t need sedation.

Sucessfully sedated, they were carefully carried to their transport cages which had been labeled based on their passengers. Zena finally fell asleep and together with William they were the first to be moved to their transport cage. Meanwhile the effects of sedation started kicking in on Noor and she was immediately moved to her transport cage. Dita had also already fallen asleep by then and was ready to be moved. Her little daughter Halt however, was a little bit nervous when her Mother was about to be moved and ran away from her screaming. The vets and technicians tried to calm the tiny two year old. Dita was moved and tailing closely behind was technician Mulyono who was carrying Halt. The sedation worked a bit slower on Kitty. The Medical Team decided to add to the initial dose. After a while she too was finally asleep and moved to her transport cage with her daughter Kate. Just a moment before the cage door was closed, Kitty was given the anti-sedation (reversal) to wake her up.

Halt

All transport cages were delivered by truck to Tjilik Riwut airport in Palangka Raya to be flown to Beringin airport in Muara Teweh.

Meanwhile in Muara Teweh, the weather was reported clear. The team in Muara Teweh was ready to welcome the 12 orangutans from Palangka Raya. The helicopter was also ready to travel to Beringin airport to meet the orangutans as soon as they arrived.

The aircraft which would transport the orangutans had been on standby at Tjilik Riwut airport in Palangka Raya since yesterday. The truck arrived at the airport at 7 in the morning. Soon after, we received the signal to start the loading process.

 This process took around ten minutes. 

Then they were ready to fly!

Beringin Airport Muara Teweh

09.10, the Twin Otter airplane arrived in Beringin airport in Muara Teweh bringing its passengers Kitty and Kate, Zena and William, Dita and Halt, Noor, a representative from Central Kalimantan Conservation and Natural Resources Authority, BOSF Advisor Jacqui Sunderland-Groves, Vet Agus Fahroni, and Technician and HLO Abdul Azis. The process of unloading was immediately completed, and the orangutans were checked by Vet Agus and each given milk. The cargo net was ready and the transport cages were positioned and safely wrapped in it. And off to Batikap!

Palangka Raya: Second Group Preparation

Stanford researchers show oil palm plantations are clearing carbon-rich tropical forests in Borneo

ORIGINAL: Stanford News

By Rob Jordan

Demand for palm oil is driving the deforestation of forests in Borneo, as trees are cleared to make way for the planting of oil farm plantations, which will send carbon dioxide, a global-warming gas, into the atmosphere.

Lian Pin Koh / Creative Commons. An oil palm nursery in Indonesian Borneo. New Stanford research shows that deforestation to make way for oil palm plantations in Borneo is becoming a globally significant source of carbon dioxide emissions.

Expanding production of palm oil, a common ingredient in processed foods, soaps and personal care products, is driving rainforest destruction and massive carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new study led by researchers at Stanford and Yale universities.

The study, published online Oct. 7 in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that deforestation for the development of oil palm plantations in Indonesian Borneo is becoming a globally significant source of carbon dioxide emissions.

Plantation expansion is projected to contribute more than 558 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in 2020 – an amount greater than all of Canada's current fossil fuel emissions.

Indonesia is the leading producer of palm and palm kernel oil, which together account for more than 30 percent of the world's vegetable oil use, and which can be used for biodiesel. Most of Indonesia's oil palm plantation expansion is occurring on the island of Borneo, also known as Kalimantan, which occupies a land area nearly the size California and Florida combined. Plantation leases, covering 32 percent of Kalimantan's lowlands outside of protected areas, represent a major land bank that is slated for development over the next decade, according to the study.

In 2010 alone, land-clearing for oil palm plantations in Kalimantan emitted more than 140 million metric tons of carbon dioxide – an amount equivalent to annual emissions from about 28 million vehicles.

Major emitter of greenhouse gasses
Home to the world's third-largest tropical forest area, Indonesia is also one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gasses, due to rapid loss of carbon-rich forests and peatlands. Since 1990, development of oil palm plantations has cleared about 16,000 square kilometers of Kalimantan's primary and logged forested lands – an area about the size of Hawaii. This accounts for 60 percent of Kalimantan's total forest cover loss in that time, according to the study's authors.

"Despite contentious debate over the types and uses of lands slated for oil palm plantations, the sector has grown rapidly over the past 20 years," said project leader Lisa M. Curran, a professor of ecological anthropology at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. By combining field measurements with analyses of high-resolution satellite images, the study evaluated lands targeted for plantations and documented their carbon emissions when converted to oil palm.

The study's researchers generated the first comprehensive maps of oil palm plantation expansion from 1990 to 2010. Using cutting-edge classification technology, developed by study co-author Gregory Asner from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, researchers quantified the types of land cleared for oil palm plantations, as well as carbon emissions and sequestration from oil palm agriculture.

"A major breakthrough occurred when we were able to discern not only forests and non-forested lands, but also logged forests, as well as mosaics of rice fields, rubber stands, fruit gardens and mature secondary forests used by smallholder farmers for their livelihoods," said Kimberly Carlson, a Yale doctoral student and lead author of the study. "With this information, we were able to develop robust carbon bookkeeping accounts to quantify carbon emissions from oil palm development."

The research team gathered oil palm land lease records during interviews with local and regional governmental agencies. These records identify locations that have received approval and are allocated to oil palm companies. The total allocated leases spanned about 120,000 square kilometers, an area slightly smaller than Greece. Most leases in the study occupied more than 100 square kilometers, an area slightly larger than Manhattan.
Tracking the land leases

Using these leases in combination with land cover maps, the team estimated future land-clearing and carbon emissions from plantations. Eighty percent of leases remained unplanted in 2010. If all of these leases were developed, more than a third of Kalimantan's lowlands would be planted with oil palm by 2020.

Despite these large numbers, accurate information about leases is not readily available for public review and oversight, even after the leases are granted. The average Kalimantan resident is unaware of plans for local oil palm development, which can have dramatic effects on residents' livelihoods and environment, Curran said.

"These plantation leases are an unprecedented 'grand-scale experiment' replacing forests with exotic palm monocultures," said Curran. "We may see tipping points in forest conversion where critical biophysical functions are disrupted, leaving the region increasingly vulnerable to droughts, fires and floods."

Combined with results generated from their more detailed district-level study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers emphasize that sustainably producing palm oil – a stated goal of the Indonesian palm oil industry – will require re-evaluation of awarded oil palm plantation leases located on forested lands.

The research study, "Carbon Emissions from Forest Conversion by Kalimantan Oil Palm Plantations," was supported by the NASA Land Cover/Land-Use Change Program, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Santa Fe Institute and the National Science Foundation.

Rob Jordan is the communications writer for the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

Media Contact

Lisa Curran, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment: (203) 606-4513, lmcurran@stanford.edu

Christine Harrison, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment: (650) 725-8240, christine.harrision@stanford.edu

Bats Feed Plants

ORIGINAL: Uni Wuerzburg

By: Robert Emmerich

Borneo, in the rain forest: A small woolly bat and its roost, the pitcher of the pitcher plant Nepenthes rafflesiana. Usually, these carnivorous plants get their extra nitrogen from the carcasses of trapped insects. This species, however, uses the feces of bats for this purpose as has been discovered by researchers of the University of Würzburg. Photo: Michael Schöner

Würzburg zoologists describe a remarkable partnership in the scientific journal "Biology Letters": Tropical bats interact with carnivorous pitcher plants – for mutual benefit.

In pitcher plants, some of the leaves have evolved into tube-shaped traps. Their smooth interior walls provide unsure footing for insects and other small animals, which easily slip and tumble down – directly into a pool of digestive fluid, where the hapless animals are dissolved and valuable nitrogen is released from their bodies. The nitrogen is then absorbed into the plant's tissue. Nitrogen is a vital nutrient for plants; among other things, it is essential as a component for the synthesis of chlorophyll.

Bat feces as a source of nitrogen

The pitcher plant Nepenthes rafflesiana, which grows in the rain forest on the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia, pursues a different nutrient-acquisition strategy: It does not rely on the carcasses of trapped animals to supplement its nitrogen intake. Instead, it uses the feces of Hardwicke's woolly bat, which consistently retires for sleep to the spacious pitchers of this plant, dropping its feces into the digestive liquid.

This relationship is of benefit to both partners: The plant offers the bat exclusive access to a safe roost and gets nutrient-rich fecal matter in return. The scientists estimate that about 34 percent of the plant's foliar nitrogen is derived from bat feces.

The pitchers of the Southeast Asian Nepenthes species are up to 25 centimeters in length with diameters ranging between four and five centimeters. The small woolly bat only has a length of three to six centimeters. Usually, the pitchers are occupied by one single animal, but sometimes mothers share a pitcher with their baby.

Extremely rare form of cooperation

"This is a very unusual example of a partnership between plants and animals," says Ulmar Grafe of the Department of Zoology III (Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology) at the University of Würzburg. So far, no other pitcher plant species has been found to get its nutrients from bat feces. There is only one other documented case to date of a partnership between a carnivorous plant and an animal: The pitcher plant Nepenthes lowii attracts tree shrews by inviting them to drink from its nectar. In order to do this, the animals sit on the pitcher, which they also use as a toilet when the occasion arises.

The exotic relationship between the woolly bat Kerivoula hardwickii and the pitcher plant Nepenthes rafflesiana has been discovered by Grafe together with the Würzburg biology students Michael and Caroline Schöner. The study also involved researchers from the University of Brunei Darussalam and the University of Greifswald.

Co-evolution of bats and pitcher plants?

At first sight, the pitcher plant does not seem to be dependent on the feces of the bats – after all, it traps insects, though not very many: "The pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana are pretty poor traps," Grafe explains. Compared with other carnivorous plant species, they produce very low amounts of digestive fluid and they exude hardly any insect-attracting scents.

The Würzburg researchers are going to examine such indications of a possible co-evolution between bats and pitcher plants in further detail. "Presumably, the bats first visited the pitchers – as an expedient measure, since safe roosts are limited in the rain forest," Grafe explains. Due to the feces of the animals, the plants might have been less dependent on trapping insects. This could explain the reduced production of scents and digestive liquid.

Progress of the research

Next, the biologists are going to examine how the bats are able to find appropriate pitchers to sleep in among all the plants in the dense undergrowth of the rain forest. What they would also like to know is whether there are other Nepenthes species that are specialized in recycling the feces of these small mammals.

Contact person

PD Dr. Ulmar Grafe, Department of Zoology III (Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology) at the University of Würzburg,

grafe@biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de

"A novel resource-service mutualism between bats and pitcher plants", Ulmar Grafe, Caroline R. Schöner, Gerald Kerth, Anissa Junaidi & Michael G. Schöner, Biology Letters, published online on 26 January 2011, doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.1141

27.01.2011, 00:00 Uhr

Willie Smits restores a rainforest

ORIGINAL: TED

By piecing together a complex ecological puzzle, biologist Willie Smits has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans -- and creating a thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems.

Willie Smits has devoted his life to saving the forest habitat of orangutans, the "thinkers of the jungle." As towns, farms and wars encroach on native forests, Smits works to save what is left.

"A natural forest is multilayered. Both in the ground and above the ground it can make better use of the available light, it can store more carbon in the system, it can provide more functions.” (Willie Smits)"

"Willie Smits has devoted his life to saving the forest habitat of orangutans, the "thinkers of the jungle." As towns, farms and wars encroach on native forests, Smits works to save what is left."

Why you should listen to him:

Willie Smits works at the complicated intersection of humankind, the animal world and our green planet. In his early work as a forester in Indonesia, he came to a deep understanding of that triple relationship, as he watched the growing population of Sulawesi move into (or burn for fuel) forests that are home to the orangutan. These intelligent animals were being killed for food, traded as pets or simply failing to thrive as their forest home degraded.

Smits believes that to rebuild orangutan populations, we must first rebuild their forest habitat -- which means helping local people find options other than the short-term fix of harvesting forests to survive. His Masarang Foundation raises money and awareness to restore habitat forests around the world -- and to empower local people. In 2007, Masarang opened a palm-sugar factory that uses thermal energy to turn sugar palms (fast-growing trees that thrive in degraded soils) into sugar and even ethanol, returning cash and power to the community and, with luck, starting the cycle toward a better future for people, trees and orangs.

"This man has dedicated his life to saving the world, and for this he earns our deepest respect." Jean Kern, Ode

Quotes by Willie Smits

“A natural forest is multilayered. Both in the ground and above the ground it can make better use of the a vailable light, it can store more carbon in the system, it can provide more functions.”