Stick Insects eggs Dispersed by Being Eaten!

[BillTre]

Main Question or Discussion Point

Similar to how some plant seed get spread to non-local areas, a percentage ofthe eggs of stick insects can survive passage through a birds gut.
Science magazine news blurb here.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

That's really interesting. Stick insects being dispersed by birds? Something that baffles me.

 

[jim mcnamara]

Plant seeds and some insects eggs/larvae survive a GI transit of (usually) a bird gut. Some actually require it as part of an organism's dispersal strategy.

Examples:
chironomid Chironomus salinarius {non-biting midge) larvae are carried passively in bird guts to new environments.
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55.short

abstract only: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1366-9516.2005.00147.x 'Recent advances in the study of long‐distance dispersal of aquatic invertebrates via birds'

This paper is often cited as the one behind 'the constipated bird theory of plant dispersal'
https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v063n04/p0235-p0237.pdf