Ecosystem consequences of reintroducing keystone bird species

The increased need for biodiversity conservation, due to the critical situation of biodiversity, has created demand for efficient methods to focus conservation efforts. One of such methods that has come to the foreground of conservation biology is the keystone species concept. This concept indicates the exceptional importance of a species for the functioning of ecosystems and allows improved focus of preservation methods. Mammals seem overrepresented in studies of the keystone species concept and only few studies investigate birds as keystone species. To discover if the underrepresentation of birds, implying that they are not as relevant as keystone species as mammals, is justified, I performed an investigation into the significance of birds within three specific categories of ecological roles within ecosystems. I present an overview of avian predators, ecosystem engineers and scavengers performing similar roles as their mammalian counterparts. When populations of these species increase or decrease, cascading effects are visible. This indicates that these bird species are keystone species. This suggests that the scarcity of studies of birds as keystone species is due to a taxonomic bias in research and not because of birds being less relevant as keystone species. With this literature review, I show that bird species do perform keystone functions within various ecosystems in ways equal to mammals.