The forest's farmers
The Great Hornbill, Buceros bicornis, is an architect of the Western Ghats' forests. Primarily a fruit-eater, or frugivore, its diet consists of figs and the lipid-rich fruits from trees in the Lauraceae and Myristicaceae families. By consuming fruits from a wide variety of trees, these birds are seed dispersers. They obtain all their water from the fruit they eat. Studies have shown that Great Hornbills are responsible for dispersing the seeds of more than 40 different tree species.
Their large size and extensive range make their dispersal services particularly effective. A single Great Hornbill can cover a home range of up to 14.7 square kilometers in the non-breeding season. Research tracking the birds revealed they disperse 95 percent of the seeds from the fruits they consume away from the parent tree. The median dispersal distance is around 250-300 meters, but non-breeding birds have been recorded carrying seeds as far as 13 kilometers. This long-distance dispersal is important for connecting fragmented forest patches and ensuring genetic diversity among tree populations. Without them, the seeds of many large-seeded trees in families like Meliaceae and Myristicaceae would have no other dispersal agent.