Pangolin Burrows Are Biodiversity Magnets in Burnt Forests, Research Reveals

By Spoorthy Raman

As insectivorous, burrowing mammals, pangolins play a key function in our ecosystem by controlling insect populations, recycling soil vitamins and sheltering different animals of their deserted burrows.
A latest research supplies the primary proof of Chinese language pangolins’ function as ecosystem engineers, whose burrows assist restore biodiversity in forest patches gutted by fires.
Over a two-year interval, the research discovered that areas with pangolin burrows had extra plant and animal species richness and variety in comparison with websites with out burrows, proving that pangolins speed up ecosystem restoration.
Specialists say the research’s findings function another excuse to preserve the scaly mammals and reintroduce them again into the wild.

Pangolins, the world’s most trafficked mammals, hit the headlines extra usually for the unlawful commerce of their scales and meat than for his or her cherished function of their surroundings. As insectivores, these scaly anteaters feast on termites and ants and preserve their numbers in verify. By digging burrows with their highly effective claws, they flip soil and cycle vitamins. Their deserted burrows turn out to be residence for a lot of reptiles, birds and different small mammals.

A latest research provides new proof to the pangolin’s function within the surroundings as ecosystem engineers. The research, revealed within the journal International Ecology and Conservation, finds that burrows dug up by Chinese language pangolins (Manis pentadactyla) encourage the expansion of vegetation and supply shelter to surviving animals in forests devastated by fires. It presents the primary qualitative proof for pangolins’ function in accelerating the restoration of degraded ecosystems, corresponding to burned forests.

“For a very long time, people have speculated that pangolins play a critical role in the ecosystem,” says conservation ecologist Matthew Shirley from Florida Worldwide College and co-chair of the Pangolin Specialist Group on the IUCN, the worldwide wildlife conservation authority, who wasn’t concerned within the research. However qualitative proof for his or her function as ecosystem engineers has been lacking as a result of gathering such knowledge “is a really challenging thing,” he says.

Since all eight recognized pangolin species on the earth are on the point of extinction on account of poaching for his or her scales and meat, scientists barely get an opportunity to review their ecological function.

“So that’s why this study is actually really interesting,” Shirley says.

The researchers behind the research lucked out once they visited forests within the Heping and Chao’an areas of Guangdong province in southern China, which had been burned by fires in 2021 and 2022. “By chance, we observed that pangolins began excavating burrows in forests that had been subjected to fires just one month after the event,” lead creator Music Solar from the Guangdong Academy of Forestry advised Mongabay by e-mail. That sight “captured our interest” in finding out their ecological function in degraded forests, Solar mentioned, they usually started gathering knowledge.

Chinese language pangolins are a critically endangered species native to southern China and components of mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. Through the winter, they dig deep underground burrows, typically taking place 2.4 meters (8 ft), and pseudo-hibernate in them, the place their metabolism and physique temperature drop barely, however they don’t fall right into a deep sleep. Chinese language pangolins are the one pangolin species recognized to overwinter. Annually, a person can dig wherever between 50 and 100 burrows.

The researchers chosen 54 websites with pangolin burrows inside burned forests in Heping and Chao’an, and an identical variety of management websites with out burrows for comparability. They put in cameras on the burrow entrances to observe and catalog which animal species used the burrows, and recorded the species of vegetation at every web site in 2021 and 2022.

Their evaluation confirmed that websites with pangolin burrows attracted extra plant and animal species than websites with out burrows. Whereas the researchers recorded 58 plant species and practically 3,000 particular person vegetation at areas with burrows, the management websites exhibited solely 47 plant species and a couple of,165 people. Animals had been additionally plentiful close to burrow websites: 35 species and 1,041 people had been recorded, together with 24 hen, 10 mammal and one reptile species. By comparability, solely 23 animal species and 427 people had been seen on the management websites.

Birds corresponding to noticed doves (Spilopelia chinensis), Daurian redstarts (Phoenicurus auroreus) and Tristram’s buntings (Emberiza tristrami) frequented pangolin burrows essentially the most. Different guests included leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis) and rodents corresponding to rats and gerbils. Black maidenhair fern (Adiantum capillus-veneris) and Asian raspberry (Rubus phoenicolasius) had been distinguished vegetation on the burrow websites.

The researchers attribute the elevated biodiversity on the burrow websites to the distinctive microhabitats that burrowing creates. When pangolins dig up topsoil, they make vitamins extra accessible to vegetation. Mound soil has greater moisture and decrease sand content material, which helps seeds germinate and rhizomes develop underground.

“Pangolins’ burrowing activities significantly promote the recovery of biodiversity in burn sites,” Solar mentioned, including that this impact was pronounced simply after the fires. “The presence of various plant species in burrow microhabitats is significantly and positively correlated with the occurrence of burrow commensal birds, indicating that frequent use of burrows by birds benefits the dispersal of plant seeds into burn sites.”

Contained in the burrows, the constant temperature and humidity entice shade-loving vegetation. Deserted pangolin burrows present thermal refuge to cold-blooded animals that survived the forest fires. Birds additionally use burrows as mud baths, and small mammals use them as a foraging and looking floor.

“Our research shows that pangolins and other burrowing animals are likely to play the ecological role of umbrella species in the ecosystem,” Solar mentioned. “Once pangolins go extinct, it is very likely to have adverse effects on other species and communities that rely on pangolin burrows.”

In a world the place forest fires are getting worse on account of local weather change, this analysis suggests pangolins might assist in the regeneration of landscapes if given an opportunity. In China, the place all native pangolins at the moment are protected species and the nation has established a pangolin conservation analysis heart, rewilding pangolins might assist rejuvenate forests broken by fires, researchers say.

“I hope that the results of the study inspire other researchers to get in the game and start to better understand the really significant ecological role that pangolins play,” Shirley mentioned, including that if we let pangolins thrive, they’ll take over the function of ecological restoration. “Nature can handle its own as long as we get out of the way a little bit.”

Banner picture: A Chinese language pangolin in Guangdong, China,. Picture courtesy of Music Solar.

Citations:

Solar, S., Zhang, S., Wu, F., Kuang, Y., Zhang, Y., Dou, H., … Hua, Y. (2025). Chinese language pangolins facilitate ecological restoration in burned forest websites by burrowing. International Ecology and Conservation, 58, e03416. doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2025.e03416

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