Combining paleo-data and modern exclosure experiments to assess the impact of megafauna extinctions on woody vegetation
Elisabeth S. Bakker,Jacquelyn L. Gill,Christopher N. Johnson,Frans W M Vera,Christopher J. Sandom,Gregory P. Asner,Jens-Christian Svenning +6 more
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TLDR
This review combines paleo- data with information from modern exclosure experiments to assess the impact of large herbivores (and their disappearance) on woody species, landscape structure, and ecosystem functions, and proposes a conceptual framework that describes the impact that herbivore suppression of woody plants is strongest where Herbivore diversity is high.Abstract:
Until recently in Earth history, very large herbivores (mammoths, ground sloths, diprotodons, and many others) occurred in most of the World’s terrestrial ecosystems, but the majority have gone extinct as part of the late-Quaternary extinctions. How has this large-scale removal of large herbivores affected landscape structure and ecosystem functioning? In this review, we combine paleo-data with information from modern exclosure experiments to assess the impact of large herbivores (and their disappearance) on woody species, landscape structure, and ecosystem functions. In modern landscapes characterized by intense herbivory, woody plants can persist by defending themselves or by association with defended species, can persist by growing in places that are physically inaccessible to herbivores, or can persist where high predator activity limits foraging by herbivores. At the landscape scale, different herbivore densities and assemblages may result in dynamic gradients in woody cover. The late-Quaternary extinctions were natural experiments in large-herbivore removal; the paleoecological record shows evidence of widespread changes in community composition and ecosystem structure and function, consistent with modern exclosure experiments. We propose a conceptual framework that describes the impact of large herbivores on woody plant abundance mediated by herbivore diversity and density, predicting that herbivore suppression of woody plants is strongest where herbivore diversity is high. We conclude that the decline of large herbivores induces major alterations in landscape structure and ecosystem functions.read more
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Megafauna and ecosystem function from the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene
Yadvinder Malhi,Christopher E. Doughty,Mauro Galetti,Felisa A. Smith,Jens-Christian Svenning,John Terborgh +5 more
TL;DR: Progress is reviewed in understanding of how megafauna affect ecosystem physical and trophic structure, species composition, biogeochemistry, and climate, drawing on special features of PNAS and Ecography that have been published as a result of an international workshop held in Oxford in 2014.
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Rewilding complex ecosystems.
Andrea Perino,Henrique M. Pereira,Henrique M. Pereira,Laetitia M. Navarro,Néstor Fernández,James M. Bullock,Silvia Ceaușu,Ainara Cortés-Avizanda,Ainara Cortés-Avizanda,Roel van Klink,Tobias Kuemmerle,Angela Lomba,Guy Pe'er,Tobias Plieninger,Tobias Plieninger,José María Rey Benayas,Christopher J. Sandom,Jens-Christian Svenning,Helen C. Wheeler +18 more
TL;DR: A framework for rewilding actions that can serve as a guideline for researchers and managers and aims to promote beneficial interactions between society and nature, and identifies trophic complexity, stochastic disturbances, and dispersal as three critical components of natural ecosystem dynamics.
Journal ArticleDOI
Herbivory on freshwater and marine macrophytes: A review and perspective
Elisabeth S. Bakker,Kevin A. Wood,Jordi F. Pagès,G. F. (Ciska) Veen,Marjolijn J. A. Christianen,Luis Santamaría,Bart A. Nolet,Sabine Hilt +7 more
TL;DR: In the last 25 years, a substantial body of evidence has developed that shows that herbivory is an important factor in the ecology of vascular macrophytes across freshwater and marine habitats as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Animals and the zoogeochemistry of the carbon cycle
Oswald J. Schmitz,Christopher C. Wilmers,Shawn J. Leroux,Christopher E. Doughty,Trisha B. Atwood,Mauro Galetti,Andrew B. Davies,Scott J. Goetz +7 more
TL;DR: It is revealed that animals can increase or decrease rates of biogeochemical processes, with a median change of 40% but ranging from 15 to 250% or more, and the key challenge, in light of these findings, is comprehensively accounting for spatially dynamic animal effects across landscapes.
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