Question

It has been stated that the rainforests owe their existence at least in part to bats.

Answer 1

Answer: Valid Statement ✓

Explanation:

Bats have been known to contribute to the growth and restoration of Tropical Rainforests in 2 main ways. Seed Dispersal and Pollination.

Seed Dispersal.

Fruit Bats in the Tropical Rainforest are responsible for a lot of seed dispersal. Feeding at night to avoid predators, they eat fruits from various trees and then defecate these seeds after digestion. Fruit Bats like most other bats are very strong fliers and so cover a whole lot of distance at night meaning that they give the seeds a very wide coverage. Indeed it has been shown that because they defecate the seeds, the seed already has fertilizer to get nutrients from as it grows thereby increasing it's growth rate.

There are also trees and plants that have evolved to grow spiky or sticky fruit that attach themselves to the Bats which then deposit them elsewhere as they fly.

Pollination.

Fruit Bats have specialized long tongues to sip nectar from flowers. When they do this they pollinate the flowers. It has even been shown that some plants evolved to have brighter colours so as to attract these bats to enable pollination to happen. Indeed research shows that more than 125 genera of tropical plants rely on bats for pollination.