Nest-building birds help disperse cotton further than wind, study suggests

Birds play a larger role in the dispersal of wild cotton than previously assumed. This is shown by a study in the journal Oikos, carried out in southern Africa. Researchers discovered that birds actively collect wild cotton as nesting material and in doing so move seeds over distances of more than a kilometer. Cotton fibers were long seen as something that evolved to disperse seeds by wind, but birds also take them to their nests and in this way help disperse the seeds much further.