No Rainforest, No Brazil Nuts

When two or more species in an ecosystem interact to each other’s benefit, the relationship is said to be mutualistic. The production of Brazil nuts and the regeneration of the trees that produce them provide an example of mutualism, and in this case the interaction also illustrates the importance of plant and animal ecology in maintaining a rainforest ecosystem.

Euglossine bees (most often the females) are the only creatures regularly able to gain entrance to the Brazil nut tree’s flowers, which have lids on them. The bees enter to feed on nectar, and in the process they pollinate the flower. Pollination is necessary to initiate the production of nuts by the tree. Thus, the Brazil nut tree depends on female euglossine bees for pollination.

Male euglossines have a different role in this ecological process. To reproduce, the males must first prove themselves to the females. The males accomplish this by visiting orchids for the single purpose of gathering fragrant chemicals from the flowers. These fragrances are a necessary precondition of euglossine mating. Without the orchids of the surrounding rainforest, the euglossine population cannot sustain itself, and the Brazil nut trees do not get pollinated. For this reason, Brazil nuts used for human consumption must be collected from the rainforest; they cannot be produced on plantations.

Once the Brazil nut pods are formed, the tree then depends on the agouti, a rodent, to distribute and actually plant the seeds. The agouti is one of the few animals capable of chewing through the very hard pod to reach the nuts inside. Agoutis scatter and bury the nuts for future consumption, but some nuts manage to sprout and grow into mature trees.