Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T06:19:36.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter Five - Trophic rewilding: ecological restoration of top-down trophic interactions to promote self-regulating biodiverse ecosystems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2019

Nathalie Pettorelli
Affiliation:
Institute of Zoology, London
Sarah M. Durant
Affiliation:
Institute of Zoology, London
Johan T. du Toit
Affiliation:
Utah State University
Get access
Type
Chapter
Information
Rewilding , pp. 73 - 98
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, B.L., Allen, L.R., Andrén, H., et al. (2017). Can we save large carnivores without losing large carnivore science? Food Webs, 12, 6475.Google Scholar
Asner, G.P., and Levick, S.R. (2012). Landscape-scale effects of herbivores on treefall in African savannas. Ecology Letters, 15, 12111217.Google Scholar
Bakker, E.S., Gill, J.L., Johnson, C.N., et al. (2016). Combining paleo-data and modern exclosure experiments to assess the impact of megafauna extinctions on woody vegetation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113, 847855.Google Scholar
Barnosky, A.D., Koch, P.L., Feranec, R.S., Wing, S.L., and Shabel, A.B. (2004). Assessing the causes of late Pleistocene extinctions on the continents. Science, 306, 7075.Google Scholar
Bartlett, L.J., Williams, D.R., Prescott, G.W., et al. (2016). Robustness despite uncertainty: regional climate data reveal the dominant role of humans in explaining global extinctions of Late Quaternary megafauna. Ecography, 39, 152161.Google Scholar
Beaune, D., Fruth, B., Bollache, L., Hohmann, G., and Bretagnolle, F. (2013). Doom of the elephant-dependent trees in a Congo tropical forest. Forest Ecology and Management, 295, 109117.Google Scholar
Bello, C., Galetti, M., Pizo, M.A., et al. (2015). Defaunation affects carbon storage in tropical forests. Science Advances, 1, e1501105.Google Scholar
Bond, W.J. (2005). Large parts of the world are brown or black: a different view on the ‘Green World’ hypothesis. Journal of Vegetation Science, 16, 261266.Google Scholar
Bowman, D. (2012). Conservation: bring elephants to Australia? Nature, 482, 3030.Google Scholar
Brunbjerg, A.K., Bruun, H.H., Moeslund, J.E., Sadler, J.P., Svenning, J.-C., and Ejrnæs, R. (2017). Ecospace: a unified framework for understanding variation in terrestrial biodiversity. Basic and Applied Ecology, 18, 8694.Google Scholar
Bunney, K., Bond, W.J., and Henley, M. (2017). Seed dispersal kernel of the largest surviving megaherbivore – the African savanna elephant. Biotropica, 49, 395401.Google Scholar
Bunzel-Drüke, M. (2001). Ecological substitutes for wild horse (Equus ferus Boddaert, 1785 = E. prezewalski Poljakov, 1881) and aurochs (Bos primigenius Bojanus, 1827). Natur- und Kulturlandschaft, 4, 240252.Google Scholar
Cornelissen, P., Bokdam, J., Sykora, K., and Berendse, F. (2014). Effects of large herbivores on wood pasture dynamics in a European wetland system. Basic and Applied Ecology, 15, 396406.Google Scholar
Côté, S.D., Rooney, T.P., Tremblay, J.-P., Dussault, C., and Waller, D.M. (2004). Ecological impacts of deer overabundance. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 35, 113147.Google Scholar
Cromsigt, J.P.G.M., and te Beest, M. (2014). Restoration of a megaherbivore: landscape-level impacts of white rhinoceros in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Journal of Ecology, 102, 566575.Google Scholar
Cumming, G.S., and Allen, C.R. (2017). Protected areas as social–ecological systems: perspectives from resilience and social–ecological systems theory. Ecological Applications, 27, 17091717.Google Scholar
Daskin, J.H., Stalmans, M., and Pringle, R.M. (2016). Ecological legacies of civil war: 35-year increase in savanna tree cover following wholesale large-mammal declines. Journal of Ecology, 104, 7989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deinet, S., Ieronymidou, C., McRae, L., et al. (2013). Wildlife comeback in Europe: the recovery of selected mammal and bird species. Final report to Rewilding Europe by ZSL, Birdlife International and the European Bird Census Council. London: Zoological Society of London.Google Scholar
Dirzo, R., Young, H.S., Galetti, M., Ceballos, G., Isaac, N.J.B., and Collen, B. (2014). Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science, 345, 401406.Google Scholar
Donlan, C.J., Berger, J., Bock, C.E., et al. (2006). Pleistocene rewilding: an optimistic agenda for twenty-first century conservation. The American Naturalist, 168, 660681.Google Scholar
Donlan, J., Green, H.W., Berger, J., et al. (2005). Re-wilding North America. Nature, 436, 913914.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doughty, C.E., Roman, J., Faurby, S., et al. (2016a). Global nutrient transport in a world of giants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113, 868873.Google Scholar
Doughty, C.E., Wolf, A., Morueta-Holme, N., et al. (2016b). Megafauna extinction, tree species range reduction, and carbon storage in Amazonian forests. Ecography, 39, 194203.Google Scholar
Ellis, E.C., Kaplan, J.O., Fuller, D.Q., Vavrus, S.J., Goldewijk, K.K., and Verburg, P.H. (2013). Used planet: a global history. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110, 79787985.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Estes, J.A., Terborgh, J., Brashares, J.S., et al. (2011). Trophic downgrading of Planet Earth. Science, 333, 301306.Google Scholar
Faurby, S., and Svenning, J.-C. (2015). Historic and prehistoric human-driven extinctions have reshaped global mammal diversity patterns. Diversity and Distributions, 21, 11551166.Google Scholar
Faurby, S., and Svenning, J.-C. (2016). Resurrection of the island rule: human-driven extinctions have obscured a basic evolutionary pattern. The American Naturalist, 187, 812820.Google Scholar
Fløjgaard, C., Bladt, J., and Ejrnæs, R. (2017a). Naturpleje og arealstørrelser med særligt fokus på Natura 2000 områderne. Videnskabelig rapport fra DCE – Nationalt Center for Miljø og Energi nr. 228. Aarhus: Aarhus University.Google Scholar
Fløjgaard, C., De Barba, M., Taberlet, P., and Ejrnæs, R. (2017b). Body condition, diet and ecosystem function of red deer (Cervus elaphus) in a fenced nature reserve. Global Ecology and Conservation, 11, 312323.Google Scholar
Ford, A.T., Goheen, J.R., Otieno, T.O., et al. (2014). Large carnivores make savanna tree communities less thorny. Science, 346, 346349.Google Scholar
Fragoso, J.M.V. (1997). Tapir-generated seed shadows: scale-dependent patchiness in the Amazon rain forest. Journal of Ecology, 85, 519529.Google Scholar
Franklin, C.M.A., and Harper, K.A. (2016). Moose browsing, understorey structure and plant species composition across spruce budworm-induced forest edges. Journal of Vegetation Science, 27, 524534.Google Scholar
Galetti, M. (2004). Parks of the Pleistocene: recreating the Cerrado and the Pantanal with megafauna. Natureza & conservaçao, 2, 93100.Google Scholar
Galetti, M., Pires, A.S., Brancalion, P.H.S., and Fernandez, F.A.S. (2017). Reversing defaunation by trophic rewilding in empty forests. Biotropica, 49, 58.Google Scholar
Galetti, M., Moleón, M., Jordano, P., et al. (2018). Ecological and evolutionary legacy of megafauna extinctions. Biological Reviews, 93, 845862.Google Scholar
Gibbs, J.P., Hunter, E.A., Shoemaker, K.T., Tapia, W.H., and Cayot, L.J. (2014). Demographic outcomes and ecosystem implications of giant tortoise reintroduction to Española Island, Galapagos. PLoS ONE, 9, e110742.Google Scholar
Gill, J.L. (2014). Ecological impacts of the late Quaternary megaherbivore extinctions. New Phytologist, 201, 11631169.Google Scholar
Griffiths, C.J., Hansen, D.M., Jones, C.G., Zuël, N., and Harris, S. (2011). Resurrecting extinct interactions with extant substitutes. Current Biology, 21, 762765.Google Scholar
Guldemond, R.A.R., Purdon, A., and van Aarde, R.J. (2017). A systematic review of elephant impact across Africa. PLoS ONE, 12, e0178935.Google Scholar
Hansen, D.M. (2015). Non-native megaherbivores: the case for novel function to manage plant invasions on islands. AoB Plants, 7, plv085.Google Scholar
Hansen, D.M., Donlan, C.J., Griffiths, C.J., and Campbell, K.J. (2010). Ecological history and latent conservation potential: large and giant tortoises as a model for taxon substitutions. Ecography, 33, 272284.Google Scholar
Haynes, G. (2012). Elephants (and extinct relatives) as earth-movers and ecosystem engineers. Geomorphology, 157158, 99107.Google Scholar
Higgs, E., Falk, D.A., Guerrini, A., et al. (2014). The changing role of history in restoration ecology. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 12, 499506.Google Scholar
Hobbs, R.J., and Cramer, V.A. (2008) Restoration ecology: interventionist approaches for restoring and maintaining ecosystem function in the face of rapid environmental change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 33, 3961.Google Scholar
Hobbs, R.J., Arico, S., Aronson, J., et al. (2006). Novel ecosystems: theoretical and management aspects of the new ecological world order. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 15, 17.Google Scholar
Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Hughes, L., McIntyre, S., et al. (2008). Assisted colonization and rapid climate change. Science, 321, 345346.Google Scholar
Hopcraft, J.G.C., Olff, H., and Sinclair, A.R.E. (2010). Herbivores, resources and risks: alternating regulation along primary environmental gradients in savannas. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 25, 119128.Google Scholar
Hovick, T.J., Elmore, R.D., and Fuhlendorf, S.D. (2014). Structural heterogeneity increases diversity of non-breeding grassland birds. Ecosphere, 5, 113.Google Scholar
Howison, R.A., Olff, H., van de Koppel, J., and Smit, C. (2017). Biotically driven vegetation mosaics in grazing ecosystems: the battle between bioturbation and biocompaction. Ecological Monographs, 87, 363378.Google Scholar
Hughes, F.M.R., Stroh, P.A., Adams, W.M., Kirby, K.J., Mountford, J.O., and Warrington, S. (2011). Monitoring and evaluating large-scale, ‘open-ended’ habitat creation projects: a journey rather than a destination. Journal for Nature Conservation, 19, 245253.Google Scholar
Hughes, F.M.R., Adams, W.M., and Stroh, P.A. (2012). When is open-endedness desirable in restoration projects? Restoration Ecology, 20, 291295.Google Scholar
Jepson, P. (2016). A rewilding agenda for Europe: creating a network of experimental reserves. Ecography, 39, 117124.Google Scholar
Jepson, P., and Schepers, F. (2016). Policy brief: making space for rewilding: creating an enabling policy environment. Oxford/Nijmegen: Rewilding Europe, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Johnson, C.N., Alroy, J., Beeton, N.J., et al. (2016a). What caused extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna of Sahul? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 283(1824).Google Scholar
Johnson, C.N., Rule, S., Haberle, S.G., Kershaw, A.P., McKenzie, G.M., and Brook, B.W. (2016b). Geographic variation in the ecological effects of extinction of Australia’s Pleistocene megafauna. Ecography, 39, 109116.Google Scholar
Johnstone, J.F., Allen, C.D., Franklin, J.F., et al. (2016). Changing disturbance regimes, ecological memory, and forest resilience. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14, 369378.Google Scholar
Jones, C.G., Lawton, J.H., and Shachak, M. (1994). Organisms as ecosystem engineers. Oikos, 69, 373386.Google Scholar
Jorge, M.L.S.P., Galetti, M., Ribeiro, M.C., and Ferraz, K.M.P.M.B. (2013). Mammal defaunation as surrogate of trophic cascades in a biodiversity hotspot. Biological Conservation, 163, 4957.Google Scholar
Klaver, I., Keulartz, J., and Van Den Belt, H. (2002). Born to be wild. Environmental Ethics, 24, 321.Google Scholar
Knapp, A.K., Blair, J.M., Briggs, J.M., et al. (1999). The keystone role of bison in North American tallgrass prairie – bison increase habitat heterogeneity and alter a broad array of plant, community, and ecosystem processes. BioScience, 49, 3950.Google Scholar
Law, A., McLean, F., and Willby, N.J. (2016). Habitat engineering by beaver benefits aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem processes in agricultural streams. Freshwater Biology, 61, 486499.Google Scholar
Law, A., Gaywood, M.J., Jones, K.C., Ramsay, P., and Willby, N.J. (2017). Using ecosystem engineers as tools in habitat restoration and rewilding: beaver and wetlands. Science of the Total Environment, 605 –606, 10211030.Google Scholar
Lee, W.G., Wood, J.R., and Rogers, G.M. (2010). Legacy of avian-dominated plant-herbivore systems in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 34, 2847.Google Scholar
Lundgren, E.J., Ramp, D., Ripple, W.J., and Wallach, A.D. (2018). Introduced megafauna are rewilding the Anthropocene. Ecography, 41, 857863.Google Scholar
Marshall, K.N., Cooper, D.J., and Hobbs, N.T. (2014). Interactions among herbivory, climate, topography and plant age shape riparian willow dynamics in northern Yellowstone National Park, USA. Journal of Ecology, 102, 667677.Google Scholar
Martin, P.S. (1967). Pleistocene overkill. Natural History, December, 3238.Google Scholar
Mech, L.D. (2012). Is science in danger of sanctifying the wolf? Biological Conservation, 150, 143149.Google Scholar
Miller, S.M., Harper, C.K., Bloomer, P., Hofmeyr, J., and Funston, P.J. (2015). Fenced and fragmented: conservation value of managed metapopulations. PLoS ONE, 10, e0144605.Google Scholar
Mills, L.S., Soulé, M.E., and Doak, D.F. (1993). The keystone-species concept in ecology and conservation. BioScience, 43, 219224.Google Scholar
Navarro, L.M., and Pereira, H.M. (2012). Rewilding abandoned landscapes in Europe. Ecosystems, 15, 900912.Google Scholar
Nenzén, H.K., Montoya, D., and Varela, S. (2014). The impact of 850,000 years of climate changes on the structure and dynamics of mammal food webs. PLoS ONE, 9, e106651.Google Scholar
Nogués-Bravo, D., Simberloff, D., Rahbek, C., and Sanders, N.J. (2016). Rewilding is the new Pandora’s box in conservation. Current Biology, 26, R87R91.Google Scholar
Ordonez, A., Williams, J.W., and Svenning, J.-C. (2016). Mapping climatic mechanisms likely to favour the emergence of novel communities. Nature Climate Change, 6, 11041109.Google Scholar
Owen-Smith, R.N. (1988). Megaherbivores: the influence of very large body size on ecology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ozinga, W.A., Römermann, C., Bekker, R.M., et al. (2009). Dispersal failure contributes to plant losses in NW Europe. Ecology Letters, 12, 6674.Google Scholar
Paine, R.T. (1980). Food webs: linkage, interaction strength and community infrastructure. Journal of Animal Ecology, 49, 667685.Google Scholar
Pérez-Méndez, N., Jordano, P., García, C., and Valido, A. (2016). The signatures of Anthropocene defaunation: cascading effects of the seed dispersal collapse. Scientific Reports, 6, 24820.Google Scholar
Pooley, S., Barua, M., Beinart, W., et al. (2017). An interdisciplinary review of current and future approaches to improving human–predator relations. Conservation Biology, 31, 513523.Google Scholar
Poschlod, P., and Bonn, S. (1998). Changing dispersal processes in the central European landscape since the last ice age: an explanation for the actual decrease of plant species richness in different habitats? Acta Botanica Neerlandica, 47, 2744.Google Scholar
Pringle, R.M., Goheen, J.R., Palmer, T.M., et al. (2014). Low functional redundancy among mammalian browsers in regulating an encroaching shrub (Solanum campylacanthum) in African savannah. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 281(1785).Google Scholar
Ripple, W.J., and Beschta, R.L. (2004). Wolves and the ecology of fear: can predation risk structure ecosystems? BioScience, 54, 755766.Google Scholar
Ripple, W.J., and Beschta, R.L. (2012). Trophic cascades in Yellowstone: the first 15 years after wolf reintroduction. Biological Conservation, 145, 205213.Google Scholar
Ripple, W.J., Beschta, R.L., Fortin, J.K., and Robbins, C.T. (2014a). Trophic cascades from wolves to grizzly bears in Yellowstone. Journal of Animal Ecology, 83, 223233.Google Scholar
Ripple, W.J., Estes, J.A., Beschta, R.L., et al. (2014b). Status and ecological effects of the world’s largest carnivores. Science, 343 (6167), 1241484.Google Scholar
Root-Bernstein, M., Guerrero-Gatica, M., Piña, L., Bonacic, C., Svenning, J.-C., and Jaksic, F.M. (2017). Rewilding-inspired transhumance for the restoration of semiarid silvopastoral systems in Chile. Regional Environmental Change, 17, 13811396.Google Scholar
Rubenstein, D.R., Rubenstein, D.I., Sherman, P.W., and Gavin, T.A. (2006). Pleistocene Park: does re-wilding North America represent sound conservation for the 21st century? Biological Conservation, 132, 232238.Google Scholar
Rull, V. (2008). Speciation timing and neotropical biodiversity: the Tertiary–Quaternary debate in the light of molecular phylogenetic evidence. Molecular Ecology, 17, 27222729.Google Scholar
Sandom, C., Faurby, S., Sandel, B., and Svenning, J.-C. (2014a). Global late Quaternary megafauna extinctions linked to humans, not climate change. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 281, 20133254.Google Scholar
Sandom, C.J., Ejrnæs, R., Hansen, M.D.D., and Svenning, J.-C. (2014b). High herbivore density associated with vegetation diversity in interglacial ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111, 41624167.Google Scholar
Seddon, P.J. (2017). The ecology of de-extinction. Functional Ecology, 31, 992995.Google Scholar
Sinclair, A. (2003). The role of mammals as ecosystem landscapers. Alces, 39, 161176.Google Scholar
Smith, F.A., Boyer, A.G., Brown, J.H., et al. (2010). The evolution of maximum body size of terrestrial mammals. Science, 330, 12161219.Google Scholar
Stegner, M.A., and Holmes, M. (2013). Using palaeontological data to assess mammalian community structure: potential aid in conservation planning. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 372, 138146.Google Scholar
Stein, A., Gerstner, K., and Kreft, H. (2014). Environmental heterogeneity as a universal driver of species richness across taxa, biomes and spatial scales. Ecology Letters, 17, 866880.Google Scholar
Svenning, J.-C., Pedersen, P.B.M., Donlan, C.J., et al. (2016). Science for a wilder Anthropocene: synthesis and future directions for trophic rewilding research. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113, 898906.Google Scholar
Terborgh, J., Davenport, L.C., Niangadouma, R., et al. (2016). Megafaunal influences on tree recruitment in African equatorial forests. Ecography, 39, 180186.Google Scholar
Ubilla, M., Rinderknecht, A., Corona, A., and Perea, D. (2018). Mammals in last 30 to 7ka interval (late Pleistocene–early Holocene) in Southern Uruguay (Santa Lucía River Basin): last occurrences, climate, and biogeography. Journal of Mammalian Evolution, 25, 291300.Google Scholar
van der Plas, F., Howison, R.A., Mpanza, N., Cromsigt, J.P.G.M., and Olff, H. (2016). Different-sized grazers have distinctive effects on plant functional composition of an African savannah. Journal of Ecology, 104, 864875.Google Scholar
Vavra, M., Parks, C.G., and Wisdom, W.J. (2007). Biodiversity, exotic plant species, and herbivory: the good, the bad, and the ungulate. Forest Ecology and Management, 246, 6672.Google Scholar
Vera, F.W.M. (2009). Large-scale nature development – the Oostvaardersplassen. British Wildlife, 20, 2836.Google Scholar
Weinstein, S., Titcomb, G., Agwanda, B., Riginos, C., and Young, H. (2017). Parasite responses to large mammal loss in an African savanna. Ecology, 98, 18391848.Google Scholar
Wilder, B.T., Betancourt, J.L., Epps, C.W., Crowhurst, R.S., Mead, J.I., and Ezcurra, E. (2014). Local extinction and unintentional rewilding of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) on a desert island. PLoS ONE, 9, e91358.Google Scholar
Wright, N.A., Steadman, D.W., and Witt, C.C. (2016). Predictable evolution toward flightlessness in volant island birds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113, 47654770.Google Scholar
Young, H.S., McCauley, D.J., Helgen, K.M., et al. (2013). Effects of mammalian herbivore declines on plant communities: observations and experiments in an African savanna. Journal of Ecology, 101, 10301041.Google Scholar
Zimov, S.A. (2005). Pleistocene park: return of the mammoth’s ecosystem. Science, 308, 796798.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×