How Llama Poop Is Helping an Andean Community Adapt to Melting Glaciers

https://eos.org/articles/how-llama-poop-is-helping-an-andean-community-adapt-to-melting-glaciers

By Sofia Moutinho, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: Ecologist Anaïs Zimmer was walking in the Peruvian Andes one day, explaining to community members how hard it is for vegetation and soil to establish itself in deglacierized areas, or areas where glacier ice is retreating. That was when locals suggested an unconventional solution: bringing in llamas to fertilize the soil with their poop. Zimmer, then at the University of Texas at Austin, had been studying the consequences of glacier loss in the Andes for the past decade. Peru, which is home to 70% of the world’s tropical glaciers, has lost more than half of them in the past 50 years because of climate change, according to the country’s ministry of agriculture. When the ice disappears, it uncovers metallic, rocky soil that had been covered for millennia. ...But an ancient practice might offer a solution to these problems. The introduction of llamas, a camelid traditionally herded by native Inca populations, can speed up soil and vegetation development in areas of glacier retreat, suggests new research published in Scientific Reports. ...The locals helped Zimmer realize llamas could act as natural gardeners, not only fertilizing the soil with nutrient-rich poop but also spreading seeds. After the llamas eat plants from the mountains and lower grasslands, they can carry seeds in their stomachs, wool, and hooves up to the high altitudes of the glacier forelands....