Sacred Fig Trees Are Crucial For Biodiversity Conservation
When Tarsh Thekaekara and Shruti Agarwal spotted a lone fig tree in sea of tea bushes in southern India, they knew it had to be special.
The researchers were documenting sacred groves in tea plantations to see if they helped conserve wild species. They learned that the fig tree was all that remained of a grove consecrated by local Paniya people who, for generations, had convinced tea estate managers not to fell the tree.
As in many other countries, fig trees (Ficus species) have been sacred in India for thousands of years. Wherever they grow, these trees are also key resources for wildlife. Thanks to some curious biology, figs feed more bird and mammal species globally than any other fruit and so sustain the seed dispersers of thousands of other plant species.
In India, and in many other countries, fig trees could play key roles in protecting biodiversity and regenerating lost forests — but policies to protect these trees are rare.
Writing in the Indian Express in 2018, Thekaekara and Agarwal explained how they returned to the lone fig tree and set up camera traps to find out what wildlife visited. They soon recorded monkeys, many bird species, civets and a species of flying squirrel.
“As the figs ripened and fell to the ground, the place really came alive,” they wrote. “Porcupine, wild boar, barking deer, sambhar deer, bear and even an elephant! A leopard also walked by, probably feeling like she was missing the party, and to try to dine on a couple of fig-eaters!”
Thekaekara and Agarwal highlight the important ecological role the tree plays in a landscape dominated by tea bushes.
“The irony is that, even with this knowledge, there is no official protection for the tree,” they wrote, “and it could legally be cut if the correct permissions are sought.”
They noted that, across their study area, many sacred groves had been reduced to just a solitary tree — most commonly a fig tree.
In India’s urban areas too, the loss of wildlife-friendly trees is elevating the importance of surviving fig trees. In a 2018 study, Harini Nagendra and colleagues documented 5,504 trees at religious sites — 62 temples, churches and Hindu, Christian and Muslim cemeteries — in Bengaluru (Bangalore).
Compared with trees in the city’s parks and streets, the trees at religious sites were far more likely to be native species, which offer more to local biodiversity.
As in the tea plantation, fig trees are disproportionately important in urban areas as they feed so many birds and mammals. At least one fig species was present at 71 percent of the religious sites the researchers surveyed.
“Fig trees play a critical role in supporting Bangalore’s threatened biodiversity,” says Nagendra. “Bangalore’s tree cover is extremely fragmented, and Ficus trees act as keystone species, improving canopy-to-canopy connectivity and supporting a wide range of species, including birds, butterflies, bees, bats, macaques, and even the endangered slender loris.”
The researchers found 286 individuals of just one fig species — the banyan, Ficus benghalensis — at the religious sites, where it was the fourth most common tree species.
By contrast, in the city’s streets and parks, all species of fig trees were relatively rare. None ranked in the top ten species the researchers counted there. Nagendra and colleagues says the large numbers of Ficus trees in sacred sites “demonstrate a strong potential” for urban conservation.
“Unfortunately, there is no policy to promote the planting of fig trees, or to conserve them,” Nagendra told me.
“Many Ficus trees in Bangalore are heritage trees, decades and even centuries old,” she said. “Yet many are now under threat, their branches pruned, the bases concreted, or are cut down for road expansion projects.”
In fields and cities in India and all across the tropics, fig trees play key roles in sustaining wildlife. The ecological importance of these trees stems from their 80-million-year old relationship with their pollinator wasps, and it helps explain why fig trees have become embedded in religions in many countries.
Over millennia, diverse cultures have protected fig trees but few societies today value them in the same way. Yet, with the right policies in place, these trees could help us to address 21st century challenges — from conserving biodiversity to restoring forest cover.
Thanks for reading. Fig trees are not only sacred in India — future Planet Ficus stories will cover their roles in religions in many other countries all across the tropics and subtropics. If you want more like this, please subscribe, share and check out some of my recent posts below.
Lovely article, Mike. Giant fig trees were so common across India's landscapes growing up, we've lost so many of them to 'development'. When birdwatching, if we chance upon a ficus, it's a mandatory halt — as we're likely to see so many species. Interestingly, lore says that during drought, the last reserves of water can be found below a ficus, and most villages used have one!