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A wild donkey digs a well in the Sonoran Desert, in the US. Photo: Erick Lundgren
The ability of horses and donkeys to dig for water in dryland ecosystems can provide important benefits to other species, researchers have found.
Erick Lundgren and his colleagues, in a study titled
Equids engineer desert water availability, noted that large animals play important roles in the biosphere, yet little is known about how they shape dryland ecosystems.
“We report on an overlooked form of ecosystem engineering by donkeys and horses,” they wrote in the journal
Science.
In the deserts of North America, the digging of wells of up to 2 meters to groundwater by wild horses and donkeys increased the density of water features, reduced distances between water sources, and, at times, provided the only water present.