Llama poop can push Earth's green cover up, study finds. Here's how

Llamas can save the world, but how? Well, simply by pooping. As bizarre as it may sound, a new scientific study has shown that llamapoop is quite nutritious for the soil that can bring back its required nourishment for plants to flourish.

A group of scientists worked with farmers who took care of llamas in the Cordillera Blancafor three years. In their three years of study, they found that raising llamas in a part of the Andes left barren by glaciers helped add nutrients back to the soil and increase the overall amount of plants.

Also Read |From habitable to ‘hell’: Runaway greenhouse effect simulation shows risk to Earth’s climate

Add WION as a Preferred Source

The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports.

As per the report, the areas where llamas were reared saw a 57 per cent increase in plant cover with increased soil nutrients and four new plant species. It was all because of the llamasgrazing, shedding and pooping in the area, as per the study.

Llamapoop: A blessing in disguise?

Llama poop is called a llama bean that contains all the nutrients like carbon and nitrogen. Both carbon and nitrogen are essential to makingsoil hospitable for life. It also contains seeds from plants that the animals have grazed on.

"No such experiment has been done like this in these areas, and at this altitude," Anaïs Zimmer, a geographer and lead author of the paper, said in a press release from the University of Texas.

Also Read |Daydreaming may be strengthening our memories, study suggests

Though this might be the first time that such a study has taken place with llamas and proven scientifically that their waste is good for the soil, it’s been a practice occurring for a long time.

Raising llamas around the glaciers of the Andes has been common since the Incan Empire ruled the area.

More recently, indigenous farmers have continued llama husbandry in the Andes. That's why Zimmer and her colleagues partnered with Llama 2000 Asociación, a group of farmers in the area.

Also Read |Celestial masterpiece: Forbidden light of distant spiral galaxy captured by Hubble

The farmers helped the researchers set up eight fenced-in areas and dispersed llamas into half of them. The herders then monitored them and took care of them, ensuring that the plots stayed separate.

Can this really solve the bigger problem?

Peru has lost more than 50 per cent of its glacial surface in the past 50 years, as per the country’s National Water Authority. This was caused by climate change.

As these glaciers continue to melt due to unsustainable ways of using natural resources by humans, we need to save what we are left behind.

Also Read |Coal miners found 'one of the most complete' rare mammoth fossil in North Dakota

When glaciers melt, the soil that has been trapped underneath it is devoid of nutrients. On its own, the soil may take hundreds of years to become fertile, EOS reported.

Reseeding plant life can help with many of these problems, Zimmer said in the UT press release. She said raising llamas in these areas "might help to ameliorate the destructive processes of global warming-induced deglaciation while favouring the local economy."

(With inputs from agencies)