Birds are one of the most diverse groups of ecosystem service providers, whose ecological
functions range from creating soil to shaping primate behavior, Nevertheless, the impression …

Ecosystem services are natural processes that benefit humans. Birds contribute the four
types of services recognized by the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment—provisioning …

What are birds worth—what is their actual dollar value to human society? To most of us in
the ornithological community, birds are invaluable. But in these times we need more specific …

Reductions in bird numbers could hamper ecosystem services such as pollination, but
experimental proof is lacking. We show that functional extinction of bird pollinators has …

Plant Disease/July 2008 989 mistletoes, but studies have not yet confirmed their role in this
process (138). Dispersal. The coevolution of mistletoes with their avian vectors has resulted …

This chapter evaluates the role of endozoochory on seed germination and reviews the
information gathered on germination patterns in experiments aimed at examining the effect …

1. Many studies have examined the effects of frugivores on the germination of seeds of
fleshy fruited plants. However, three key issues are rarely addressed: the need to measure …

Worldwide declines in bird numbers have recently renewed interest in how well bird–plant
mutualisms are functioning. In New Zealand, it has been argued that bird pollination was …

Although global declines in frugivores may disrupt seed dispersal mutualisms and inhibit
plant recruitment, quantifying the likely reduction in plant regeneration has been difficult and …

In our increasingly technological society, people give little thought to how dependent they
are on the proper functioning of ecosystems and the crucial services for humanity that flow …