Skip to content
Science — health-and-wellness — fitness-and-exercise — environmental-science — Finance — Lifestyle — home-and-garden — Business — Freshen Up Your Urban Space: Gardening Tips for Vegas Residents — Technology — Headline: Hit the Jackpot in Vegas — personal-growth — Social-media — Entertainment — learning

Carnivorous piranhas forgo meat, thrive as South America's premier garden cultivators in the Amazon.

Giant South American fish, the tambaqui, is a vegetarian relative of the notorious piranha. Despite its flesh-consuming kin, the 30-kilogram tambaqui forgoes carnivorous tendencies. It navigates the waterways of the Amazon's flooded forests, subsisting on fallen fruits from the trees above. In...

,   and  Administrator
2 min read
Carnivorous piranhas swapping meat for plants and thriving as top horticulturists in the Amazon...
Carnivorous piranhas swapping meat for plants and thriving as top horticulturists in the Amazon rainforest.

Carnivorous piranhas forgo meat, thrive as South America's premier garden cultivators in the Amazon.

The Tambaqui, a close relative of the piranha, is a vegetarian fish that swims through the flooded forests of the Amazon. This fish, often overshadowed by its carnivorous counterpart, plays a crucial role in the ecosystem, serving as a champion seed carrier.

A study conducted by Jill Anderson from Cornell University and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B in 2011, revealed that the tambaqui is capable of spreading seeds over several kilometers. Anderson found 700,000 intact seeds from 22 different species in the guts of 230 tambaqui fish.

Seeds find it slightly easier to germinate after a voyage through the tambaqui's innards. The fish give the seeds a more leisurely passage, with larger ones moving especially slowly. On average, tambaquis carry about 3 to 5 different Amazon fish species in their stomach when overfished.

Anderson tracked 24 tambaqui fish using radio transmitters and found that they carry seeds an average of 330-550 meters away from the parent plant. 5% of the seeds are carried for a few kilometers, and some even end up 4 or 5 kilometers away.

However, overfishing of tambaqui fish is a significant problem. The average size of the tambaqui population has shrunk by 90% in some areas due to overfishing. Overfishing could potentially threaten the future of the flooded forests that provide a livelihood for fishermen.

Other species of fruit-eating fish are also facing similar problems. The overfishing could be disrupting the long-standing alliances between tambaqui fish and Amazonian plants that have been going on for millions of years. Fishermen are not only depriving the Amazon of some of its most effective seed dispersers, but they are also taking the best seed carriers out of the game.

Anderson suggests that larger tambaqui fish, which she did not catch during her study, might be capable of carrying seeds further than the ones she observed. The Asian elephant and the African hornbill are the only animals that can carry seeds further than the tambaqui.

Photos of the fish and canoe used in the study were taken by Kirk Winemiller and Jill Anderson, respectively. The study highlights the importance of the tambaqui in seed dispersal for many plants in the Amazon that have adapted to use fish as seed vehicles. It also underscores the need for sustainable fishing practices to preserve this vital ecosystem service.

Read also:

Related

Latest