SAVE THE MARIANA FRUIT BAT
Supporting the Life of Many Plants:
One of the many extremely important things the Mariana Fruit Bat does for its ecosystem is pollination. They are keystone pollinators, which means that without them the pollination system for the plants within its ecosystem could quite possibly fail altogether (Winter, 2007). For example, the liana plant is extremely dependent on fanihi, and in return provides the bat with fleshy bracts to eat. Pollen is carried from flower to flower on the bat’s fur, providing both flowers and fruit with a chance to live and benefit the island’s unique ecosystem, while also benefitting the bat’s own precious life (Lemke, 1986).
Their Lifestyle is Designed to be Sustainable:
These bats occupy a specific place, or niche, within their ecosystem. They live in commensalism with the tropical forests they roost in (Brooke, 2015). These bats have never done anything negative to the environment around them, simply living quietly in their niche and helping other plants thrive. But still, they have been met with hostility and destruction tearing down their species at a rate they can’t fight back against. Part of the reason fanihi live sustainably in their environment is because they are K-strategist species, which means they have few offspring and stable population fluctuations. They typically produce one offspring per year, carefully preparing them for a world that is now unfortunately cruel to them (Brooke, 2015). When forces like the brown tree snake, human consumption, military bases and deforestation rage against this poor bat, they simply cannot reproduce fast enough to keep up with the rate of their predators killing them off.
Spreading Native Plants Around the Island:
In addition to pollinating, they are also keystone seed-dispersers. They are the only frugivorous mammal on the islands, which means that the role they play in seed dispersal is indispensable (Winter, 2007). These gentle animals feed on breadfruit, papaya, fadang, figs, kafu, and talisai and the flowers of kapok, coconut, and gaogao (Endangered Species in the Pacific Islands, 2015). These fruits, including their seeds, are passed through the bat. The seeds are then dispersed throughout the island through the bat’s guano while it is in flight. While just performing their natural eating habits, these important animals are supporting the regeneration of forests on the islands. Deforestation has affected and at least partially destroyed almost every section of the forested globe, so the Mariana Fruit Bat does an extremely important task for its home by spreading native fruit seeds around the islands (Winter, 2007). In addition to helping in the cause to save forests that have been lost by spreading the seeds around, these amazing bats also provide a natural fertilizer to help support native plants. Because the seeds are dispersed around the islands through the bat’s guano, the seed is provided with a “little shell of fertilizer” to help grow a new tree with every seed dropped (Draft, 2009). In fact, some trees won’t even grow unless it has passed through the body of the fanihi, which means the populations of some trees would completely die out unsustainably fast if the bats stay on the same track they are on towards a violent extinction.
The Mariana Fruit Bat is a little animal with some big jobs. This fighter is working its hardest to both survive the fatal tolls of hunting, and non-native predators, as well as still benefitting other species on the island. With populations at a horrifically low number of only 50 on some islands, this animal will not be able to provide their ecosystem services for much longer (Brown, 2011). There’s no way to tell what could happen to the ecosystems of Guam and the Mariana Islands if the Mariana Fruit Bat went extinct, but since they are a keystone species, one thing is for sure: the results would be drastic.
Is the Mariana Fruit Bat Even That Important to its Ecosystem?
