Prehistoric and historic baselines for trophic rewilding in the Neotropics
Open accessAbstract
A promising, but also controversial approach to ecological restoration is trophic rewilding, i.e., species introductions to restore top-down trophic interactions and associated trophic cascades to promote self-regulating biodiverse ecosystems. To provide historically-informed base-lines for trophic rewilding in the Neotropics, we aggregate data on late-Quaternary (last 130,000 years) large-bodied (megafauna, here: ≥10 kg body mass) mammals to estimate two base-lines: megafaunas including historically (post-1500 AD) extinct species and accounting for regional extirpations of extant species (historic base-line), and megafaunas additionally including Late Pleistocene-Holocene prehistorically extinct species (prehistoric base-line). The historic base-line is less controversial, while the prehistoric base-line is more relevant from an evolutionary, long-term perspective. The estimated potential distributions indicate strong scope for trophic rewilding, with high levels for the prehistoric baseline (with >20 species missing in many regions and biomes), but also considerable values for the historical baseline. Many areas have strongly reduced diversities for a range of functional and phylogenetic subgroups. We discuss implications, highlighting the need for a more nuanced view on non-native megafauna species as they may sometimes represent taxon substitutions for missing species. We emphasize that trophic rewilding should be implemented flexibly and in dialogue with society, e.g., handling human–wildlife conflicts and ensuring benefits for local livelihoods.
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Megaherbivores provide the resources required for supporting species expansion, driving biodiversity whilst maintaining ecosystem function and resilience.
“They provide the resources required for supporting species expansion, driving biodiversity whilst maintaining ecosystem function and resilience.(Estes & et al., 2011;Svenning & Faurby, 2017).”
From An Investigation into the Perception and Prevalence of Mixed-Species Exhibits in Zoos and Aquaria (2022) · cites this paper as Svenning & Faurby, 2017
The Introduction (page unavailable) says restoring megafauna may increase the capacity for biodiversity and help prevent declines in megafauna-dependent species. The Extinct section (page unavailable) describes megaherbivores as ecosystem engineers with substantial effects on ecosystem structure and function. The paper does not establish that they provide resources required for species expansion or maintain ecosystem resilience; the claim also states more certainly what the Introduction hedges as a possibility. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived?
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“Human impacts on ecosystem are intensifying, with increasing biodiversity losses and risk of 6th mass extinction as one of the major consequences (Barnosky et al., 2011).”
BackgroundGlobal nutrient transport in a world of giants
Doughty, C. E., Roman, J., Faurby, S., Wolf, A., Haque, A., Bakker, E. S., Malhi, Y., Dunning, J. B., & Svenning, J.-C. (2016) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1502549112 · Cited by 470 · see citing works
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An Investigation into the Perception and Prevalence of Mixed-Species Exhibits in Zoos and Aquaria
Green, H., Palmer, G. A., & Brereton, J. E. (2022) · Journal of Research in Social Science and Humanities · doi:10.56397/jrssh.2022.12.02 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“(Estes & et al., 2011; Svenning & Faurby, 2017).”
- Authors
- Svenning, J.-C., & Faurby, S.
- Affiliations
- Aarhus University (DK)
- University of Gothenburg (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Svenning, Jens-Christian
- Venue
- Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-10
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 282-291
- ISSN
- 2530-0644 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2767775215
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 1.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- European Research Council (ERC-2012-StG-310886-HISTFUNC)
- Carlsberg Foundation (CF16-0005-MegaPast2Future)
- VILLUM (16549)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
- Keywords
- trophic rewilding, megafauna, large mammals, reintroduction, trophic cascades, potential species distribution, Neotropical region, functional diversity, phylogenetic diversity, introduced species, human-wildlife conflict, ecological restoration
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