If you're enjoying a particularly good batch of macadamia nuts, you might have a cohort of bees, bats, and birds to thank for it.
A research team led by two German universities discovered that the aforementioned animals play key roles in pollination and biological pest control that boost the quantity and quality of macadamia nuts.
The international team published its findings in the Ecological Applications journal. The researchers' work highlights how sustainable agriculture leveraging ecosystem services can help growers avoid overreliance on damaging alternative solutions like pesticide use.
To better understand how the animals worked, the scientists studied orchards in South Africa.
What they found was that pollinators like bees raised macadamia yields by an average of 525% for the set of "final nuts" counted well after plants flowered. Meanwhile, insect damage to nuts was reduced by an average of 40% by bats and birds that feasted on pests.
The research also uncovered different factors for how effective the animals and insects were in their roles.
"The benefits of pollination by insects were most noticeable in orchards where macadamia tree rows were oriented perpendicular to natural habitats," said Professor Ingo Grass of the University of Hohenheim in a news release.
Similarly, Grass said the effectiveness of birds and bees in reducing pests "was enhanced by the presence of nearby natural habitats," while it decreased at higher elevations.
The team's work further demonstrated the importance of pollinators to the global food supply. Declining rates of pollination are a grave concern that scientists link to extreme weather events caused by the warming of the planet.
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Bees play a major role in pollinating numerous agricultural crops. When it comes to bats, not only do they play a role in pest control for macadamia nuts, they are also critical pollinators. Bats are crucial for pollinating agave, the key ingredient in tequila.
Sustainable agriculture hopes to work with these pollinators and biological pest control instead of relying heavily on chemicals like pesticides. Pesticides on food come with potential dangerous side effects like a heightened risk of cancer or cardiovascular disease.
Applying pesticide can also harm biodiversity, pollinators and the local ecosystem while pesticide drift can contaminate waterways, other crops, and threaten nearby humans.
If agriculture can instead lean into the magic of nature, that is a win-win for the planet and consumer.
The research team expects its findings to allow growers to maximize the pollination and biological pest control of these animals and insects through "smart plantation design and the protection of natural habitats," per the release.
"By managing these ecosystem services together, we can transition to more sustainable agriculture," said Catrin Westphal, a professor at Göttingen University.
"This will boost agricultural productivity while reducing the need for chemicals that endanger biodiversity," Westphal concluded.
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