Xenohyla truncata tree frog might be the first pollinating amphibian known to science
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The ecology of pollination has always had classic protagonists: insects, birds, and bats. However, a recent scientific discovery in Brazil is forcing biology to rewrite its books. Researchers have recorded, for the first time in the history of science, an amphibian acting as a potential pollinator.
Until very recently, conservation biology had already expanded the range of unconventional pollinators to include small marsupials, rodents, and reptiles. The inclusion of amphibians in this select ecological group raises the level of complexity of mutualistic relationships in our ecosystems.
This finding reinforces a critical warning: the global population decline of amphibians (one of the most sensitive and threatened classes of vertebrates on the planet due to climate change) may have direct, silent and as yet unmeasured cascading effects on the reproduction of species of our native flora.
doi: 10.1126/science.adi5190 and doi: 10.1016/j.fooweb.2023.e00281
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