Hippos: Global change may alter the way that hippos shape the environment around them

• Community ecologists have found that global change may alter the way that hippos shape the environment around them.
• The average hippo weighs more than 3,000 pounds and consumes about 100 pounds of vegetation daily. This naturally results in large quantities of dung being deposited into the rivers and lakes where hippos spend their days.
• In general, the nutrients delivered via hippo dung to such aquatic ecosystems are perceived to be beneficial. 
• For millennia, they provided a natural source of fertilizer that appears to fuel life in aquatic food webs. That may be changing.

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY