Bears - Sounds Wild
Seed Dispersing bears

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Seed dispersing bears

On a late summer morning a bear is poised beside a salmon stream in a sunlit forest, and with a lunge and snap it grabs a fish from a shallow riffle. It fades back into the trees to eat the fish. Salmon rich environments support high densities of bears, in fact, the highest densities of bears in the world are found in salmon-rich areas of Alaska. Those bears have a far reaching effect on the surrounding ecosystem in ways not readily apparent. In addition to salmon, bears also eat a lot of berries, and bear scat containing thousands of berry seeds is dispersed widely throughout the forest. That provides a service to those plants, helping them to spread and become established in new areas. It's also a benefit to small mammals. All those seeds in all that bear scat in the forest is important food for large populations of voles, mice and squirrels. Those small mammals also serve as secondary seed dispersers when they store seeds for winter. Not all those seeds are eaten, and some sprout and grow in the spring.

Researchers found that bears are important in dispersing 12 species of plants, especially devils club and blueberry. Red back voles and deer mice in particular benefit from bear-dispersed seeds, and in some areas, seeds gleaned from bear scat provides about half their daily food.