Rewilding & Conservation News and Discussions

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Wild species relied on by billions at risk, report warns
Source: AP

By FABIANO MAISONNAVE

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Every day billions of people depend on wild flora and fauna to obtain food, medicine and energy. But a new United Nations-backed report says that overexploitation, climate change, pollution and deforestation are pushing one million species towards extinction.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - or IPBES - report said Friday that unless humankind improves the sustainable use of nature, the Earth is on its way to losing 12% of its wild tree species, over a thousand wild mammal species and almost 450 species of sharks and rays, among other irreparable harm.

Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 7.9 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said. 1 in 3 people rely on fuel wood for cooking, the number even higher in Africa.

“It’s essential that those uses be sustainable because you need them to be there for your children and grandchildren. So when uses of wild species become unsustainable, it’s bad for the species, it’s bad for the ecosystem and it’s bad for the people,” report co-chair Marla R. Emery of the United States told The Associated Press.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/climate-unit ... 4c6d8764a5

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Weak protection for vanishing whale violates law, judge says
Source: AP

By PATRICK WHITTLE

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The federal government hasn’t done enough to protect a rare species of whale from lethal entanglement in lobster fishing gear, and new rules are needed to protect the species from extinction, a judge has ruled.

The government has violated both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act by failing to protect the North Atlantic right whale, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled on Friday. The whales number less than 340 in the world and have been declining rapidly in population in recent years.

Boasberg’s ruling was a victory for conservation groups that have long sought to save the whale and a new challenge for lobster fishermen who have fought back against tightening restrictions on where and how they can fish. Boasberg ruled that the court’s findings “do not dictate that it must immediately shutter the American lobster fishery,” but instead said the parties must propose potential remedies to the threat faced by whales.

The ruling “may seem a severe result for the lobster industry” and the government, but no one “operates free from the strict requirements imposed by the MMPA and ESA,” Boasberg wrote.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/maine-whales ... 7bee3486cb

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Preservation of Kelp Forests - A Prickly Situation
July 12, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Purple sea urchins are munching their way through California’s kelp forests at a speed and scale that have stunned scientists, fishermen and divers alike. But the kelp forests have long been home to red and purple urchins, so it’s clear the three species can get along. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara sought to determine what factors disrupt this harmony.

“Why is it that in some places urchins cause the demise of a kelp forest, and in other places urchins and kelp can coexist?” asked Associate Professor Adrian Stier. “Our analysis shows what’s going on under the hood. It offers a lot more resolution in explaining when and where you might expect urchins to devour kelp.”

That analysis, led by doctoral students Mae Rennick and Bart DiFiore, appears in the journal Ecology. The authors combined laboratory experiments with 20 years of field data to uncover what prompts urchins to begin eating their way out of a home. The results suggest that the supply of kelp scraps, or detritus, may be the deciding factor.

Co-author Dan Reed, a research biologist at UCSB’s Marine Science Institute, formulated the hypothesis behind this study several decades ago. “Back in the 1980's, we noticed one of our sites at San Nicolas Island transitioned back and forth between kelp forests and sea urchin barrens without any change in urchin density,” he recalled. “This led us to believe that the availability of kelp detritus altered the foraging behavior of urchins from passive feeding, when detritus was abundant, to active grazing on living kelp, when detritus was scarce.”

Rennick and DiFiore set out to test this hypothesis. They collected purple and red urchins from the field and brought them back to their lab. After acclimating the urchins to the tanks, the researchers withheld food from them for about a week. Then they added kelp into the different tanks, weighing it before feeding and 48 hours after feeding for purple urchins, and 96 hours for red urchins, to determine how kelp consumption changes with urchin density.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/958589

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*Edit: Accidental post in wrong thread.*

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How cover crops can protect the Chesapeake Bay
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-crops-chesapeake-bay.html
by Eric Hamilton, American Society of Agronomy

The Chesapeake Bay once produced tens of millions of bushels of oysters a year. Today, the oyster harvest is below one percent of these historic highs. What happened?

"With modern farming and urban development in the watershed around the Bay during the mid-20th century, water quality declined rapidly," says Ray Weil, a professor of soil science at the University of Maryland. "Soon the oysters disappeared, many of the fish nearly went extinct, and the crabs were threatened."

Weil studies ways to help the Chesapeake Bay recover. His research focuses on one of the key culprits in the bay's decline: nutrients. Key plant nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous are good for crops, Weil says. "However, in waterways, nitrogen also stimulates the production of plants. In this case it's aquatic weeds and algae," he says. All that extra biomass dies and rots, removing oxygen from the water. Lack of oxygen in the waters is a major threat to life in the Chesapeake Bay. In addition, some algae can be toxic to people and fish.

[wjfox]

Wild bison return to UK for first time in thousands of years

Mon 18 Jul 2022 06.45 BST

Early on Monday morning, three gentle giants wandered out of a corral in the Kent countryside to become the first wild bison to roam in Britain for thousands of years.

The aim is for the animals’ natural behaviour to transform a dense commercial pine forest into a vibrant natural woodland. Their taste for bark will kill some trees and their bulk will open up trails, letting light spill on to the forest floor, while their love of rolling around in dust baths will create more open ground. All this should allow new plants, insects, lizards, birds and bats to thrive.

The Wilder Blean project, near Canterbury, is an experiment to see how well the bison can act as natural “ecosystem engineers” and restore wildlife. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.

A more natural woodland should also absorb more carbon, helping to tackle the climate crisis. Global heating was evident as the bison were released, with England in the grip of a heatwave, and the early timing was to allow the bison to reach the shade of the woods before temperatures started to climb.

European bison are the continent’s largest land animal – bulls can weigh a tonne – and were extinct in the wild a century ago, but are recovering through reintroduction projects across Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... s-of-years

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Malaysia seizes African tusks, pangolin scales worth $18M
Source: AP

PORT KLANG, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian authorities said Monday they seized a container of African elephant tusks, pangolin scales and other animal skulls and bones estimated to be worth 80 million ringgit ($18 million).

The Customs Department said in a statement it discovered the contraband hidden behind sawn timber following checks on July 10 on a ship coming from Africa. This included 6,000 kilograms (13,227 pounds) of elephant tusks, 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of pangolin scales, 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of rhino horns and 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of animal skulls, bones and horns, it said.

Investigations are ongoing on the importer and shipping agent, the department said without providing further details. It was unclear if the container was meant to be shipped to other parts of Asia. Ivory tusks, rhino horns and pangolin scales are believed to have medicinal properties and are in high demand in the region.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/asia-malaysi ... 4f565f0cf2

[wjfox]

Cheetahs to prowl India for first time in 70 years

BBC News
16 hours ago

For the first time in 70 years, India's forests will be home to cheetahs.

Eight of them are set to arrive in August from Namibia, home to one of the world's largest populations of the wild cat.

Their return comes decades after India's indigenous population was declared officially extinct in 1952.

The world's fastest land animal, the cheetah can reach speeds of 70 miles (113km) an hour.

Classified as a vulnerable species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, only around 7,000 are left in the wild worldwide.

Officials announced the agreement after spending the past two years working on how to transport the animals after India's supreme court decided in 2020 that they could be reintroduced in a "carefully chosen location".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-62239811

[Time_Traveller]

Beavers to be given legal protection in England

Thu 21 Jul 2022 14.03 BST

Beavers are to be given legal protection in England, meaning it will be illegal to kill or harm them as they are formally recognised as native wildlife.

This is a step forward for the charismatic rodents, which were hunted to extinction in this country 400 years ago but have reappeared due to illegal releases around the country.

The government has also been licensing beaver releases inside enclosures, and some environmentalists hope that later this year in the upcoming beaver strategy there will be permissions for the rodents to be released to roam wild.

It is thought there are hundreds of beavers already living wild along England’s waterways, with some experts believing there could be as many as 800.

New legislation, due to come into force on 1 October, will make it an offence to deliberately capture, kill, disturb, or injure beavers, or damage their breeding sites or resting places – without holding the appropriate licence.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... in-england

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The planetary role of seagrass conservation
by
August 4, 2022

Abstract:

(Science) Seagrasses are remarkable plants that have adapted to live in a marine environment. They form extensive meadows found globally that bioengineer their local environments and preserve the coastal seascape. With the increasing realization of the planetary emergency that we face, there is growing interest in using seagrasses as a nature-based solution for greenhouse gas mitigation. However, seagrass sensitivity to stressors is acute, and in many places, the risk of loss and degradation persists. If the ecological state of seagrasses remains compromised, then their ability to contribute to nature-based solutions for the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis remains in doubt. We examine the major ecological role that seagrasses play and how rethinking their conservation is critical to understanding their part in fighting our planetary emergency.

For information to gain full access to article: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq6923

Conclusion in a summary discussion of the article as presented in EurekAlert:

Dr Unsworth (who leads the University’s team and is a founding director of marine conservation charity Project Seagrass) said: “Seagrasses are of fundamental importance to the planet but compared with terrestrial grasses, and even seaweeds, the body of research within seagrass is magnitudes smaller.

“However, there are substantial ecological, social, and regulatory barriers and bottlenecks to seagrass restoration and conservation because of the scale of the interventions required.

“Now advances in marine robotics, molecular ecology, remote sensing, and artificial intelligence all offer new opportunities to solve conservation problems in difficult environments at unprecedented global scales.

“It is only by looking beyond carbon and recognising the true value of seagrass meadows can we place it on a pathway to net zero loss and ultimately net gain.”

Source: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/961068



Link to Project Seagrass: https://www.projectseagrass.org/

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In With the Old: Taking the Long View When Restoring Grasslands
August 5, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Grassland restoration has often been trampled underfoot in the rush to score carbon credits by planting trees, and undermined by the assumption that degraded grasslands are easily fixed because they are thought of as relatively young habitats.

An article in Science by Elise Buisson, Sally Archibald, Alessandra Fidelis and Katharine N. Suding argues strongly that restoration interventions should be long-term, and benchmarked by an understanding of the complexities of ancient grasslands. Such spaces have been built over centuries into ecosystems of high species diversity, whose resilience to climate change lies mostly out of sight, below the ground. The authors highlight that land conversion – to cultivation or plantation forestry – is irreversible: i.e. it is highly unlikely that these systems can ever be restored to their old-growth state. Therefore they argue that conversion should be avoided wherever possible, but also set out some practical restoration options for the Earth’s grassy ecosystems that use knowledge of the unique needs of their biodiversity to promote old-growth characteristics.

Grasslands constitute almost 40% of the terrestrial biosphere, and on top of providing habitat for a great diversity of plants and animals, contribute to the livelihoods of about one in eight people in the world. Nevertheless, they are imperilled by massive land conversion for intensive agriculture and silviculture (forestry), mining, woody encroachment and species invasion “driven by altered fire and grazing regimes”.

Land-use changes to, for example mining or cultivation, and altered disturbance regimes, put belowground structures (e.g. bud banks) at risk of degradation sufficiently serious to push grasslands over a threshold beyond which restoration may be difficult, or take decades to achieve. This makes it imperative to protect old-growth grasslands, “particularly from the threats that affect belowground processes and structure, as we cannot rely on restoration to guide complete recovery after such degradation,” say the authors.

Numerous studies across six continents show that secondary grasslands may take at least a century, “and more often millennia, to recover their former species richness”. Less is known about how long it might take for belowground soil and structure development, but it is likely to follow the same timeline.

Conclusion (this is a news release, apparently issued by the University of Witwatersrand, therefore no need to worry about constraints in length related to copyright protection):

In conclusion, they “urge conservation initiatives to safeguard against the conversion of old-growth grasslands for treeplanting or tillage agriculture, to maintain our ancient biodiverse grasslands with appropriate disturbance regimes, and to emphasise the long-term restoration of grasslands in efforts to restore Earth’s biodiversity”.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/961051

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Bringing Sea Otters Back to Oregon Faces Ideological Challenges
August 8, 2022

Introduction:

PORTLAND, Ore. (Courthouse News) — If asked to choose between the environment and commercial interests, most environmentalists would naturally side with the former. But the reality is more complicated, particularly when Indigenous tribes — long left out of the conversation on how the federal government navigates issues concerning natural resources and commercial interests — are brought to the table.

In the case of mitigating climate change by reintroducing sea otters to habitats where they once thrived, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife is faced with such a dilemma. Particularly so because bringing sea otters to the Northern California and Oregon coasts sounds promising to everyone except those who are already living near the endangered species.

Known by some local tribes as the Elekha, sea otters are a small marine mammal of the family Mustelidae, characterized by their furry, weasel appearance and their hallmark tendency to float on their back while using a rock to open hard-shelled invertebrates. The animal is objectively cute, with its furry white face that pops over the top of the ocean to stare out like a teddy bear with tiny eyes and an extra wide nose.

The southern and northern sea otters, Enhydra lutris, are distinct by geography and marginally by their DNA, as fur traders nearly hunted the animal to extinction during the 18th and 19th centuries. Southern sea otters live in small pockets along the Southern California coastline while northern sea otters live from northern Washington state to southeastern Alaska — the latter a direct result of preservation and reintroduction.

But prior to joining a growing list of near-extinct species by 1911, the same year of the International Fur Trade Treaty, sea otters thrived along the entire Pacific Rim from Hokkaido, Japan, all the way to Mexico. In fact, fossil evidence suggests ancestors of the Enhydra lutris first localized the North Pacific region 2 million years ago before evolving into the species we know today.

The article goes on to explain the positive impact sea ottters can have on kelp forests as well as how they may “pose a risk to already dwindling populations of Dungeness crab and commercial species of shellfish.”

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/reintro ... allenges/

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Scientists Issue Plan for Rewilding the American West
August 9, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert ) As the effects of climate change mount, ecosystem restoration in the US West has garnered significant public attention, bolstered by President Joe Biden's America the Beautiful plan to conserve 30% of US land and water by 2030. Writing in BioScience, William J. Ripple and 19 colleagues follow up on the Biden plan with a proposal for a "Western Rewilding Network," comprising 11 large reserve areas already owned by the federal government. The authors advocate for the cessation of livestock grazing on some federal lands, coupled with the restoration of two keystone species: the gray wolf and the North American beaver.

Wolves and beavers, according to the authors, are notable for their ability to produce broad ecosystem effects. For instance, they say, "by felling trees and shrubs and building dams, beavers enrich fish habitat, increase water and sediment retention, maintain water flows during drought, provide wet fire breaks, improve water quality, initiate recovery of incised channels, increase carbon sequestration, and generally enhance habitat for many riparian plant and animal species." Wolves share a similar potential to reshape ecosystems, and "could assist in the natural control of overabundant native ungulates," allowing native vegetation to regrow in previously degraded areas.

The rewilding plan would produce profound cascading effects, say the authors, and could ultimately benefit many of the "92 threatened and endangered species across nine taxonomic groups: five amphibians, five birds, two crustaceans, 22 fishes, 39 flowering plants, five insects, 11 mammals, one reptile, and two snail species."

The authors cite a number of costs to their bold initiative, including payments to any livestock farmers, who should get just reimbursement for lost grazing allotments on federal lands. Ripple and colleagues argue that these challenges will ultimately prove navigable, in part because meat derived from forage on federal lands accounts for only about 2% of the nation's production. Furthermore, say the authors, the time is ripe for "ultra ambitious action," given the "unprecedented period of converging crises in the American West, including extended drought and water scarcity, extreme heat waves, massive fires triggered at least partly by climate change, and biodiversity loss."

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960931

Here is a link to the article published in Bioscience: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/adv ... gin=false

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New Zealand's endangered kakapo parrot gets a big population boost

August 9, 2022

WELLINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - The population of New Zealand's kakapo, an endangered flightless parrot, has increased 25% in the last year to 252 birds following a good breeding season and success with artificial insemination, the conservation department said Tuesday.

The kakapo have been nearly wiped out by introduced predators such as stoats as the birds cannot fly. The problem has been exacerbated by inbreeding, very low fertility - only 50% of eggs are fertilised - and as they only breed every two or three years when native rimu trees fruit.

The population of the kakapo, which is the world’s heaviest parrot, is now at its highest number since the 1970s.

"There were just 86 kakapo when I first started working as a kakapo ranger in 2002. That number was scary. Having a breeding season with 55 chicks feels like a very positive step," said Deidre Vercoe, operational manager for the kakapo recovery programme.

The programme was established in 1995. It is a collaboration between the New Zealand conservation department and Maori tribe Ngai Tahu and uses volunteers to help with activities like monitoring the nests to keep them out of trouble. Some birds have had to be rescued after getting stuck in the mud or after their legs were caught in trees.

https://www.reuters.com/business/enviro ... e=Facebook

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A Fresh Look into Grasslands as Carbon Sink
August 12, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Grasslands have the capability to store carbon, functioning as an important tool in a battle against climate change. While scientific interest in grassland soil for carbon sequestration is not new, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Colorado State University have provided a fresh analysis of the existing research on soil carbon sequestration in grasslands. According to the researchers, they apply a new paradigm of soil organic matter formation to their evaluation and -- through the lens of this paradigm and with consideration for regional differences -- evaluate grassland management for carbon sequestration.

The review article was published in Science on Aug. 4.

"This is the first review which applies the new paradigm of soil organic matter formation and persistence to both discuss the effect of global changes on grasslands' soil organic carbon and estimate the potentials of soil organic carbon sequestration of global grasslands," said first author BAI Yongfei of the Institute of Botany at Chinese Academy of Sciences.

While storing carbon in grassland soil has been proven to be an attainable strategy for removing it from the atmosphere, the specifics of global grassland soil carbon sequestration -- how, where and how much -- still require more research for a deeper understanding and to form best practice recommendations, according to the researchers.

"In the past decade, there has been a paradigm shift in the understanding of the processes contributing to soil organic matter formation and persistence, which have highlighted the key role of microbial transformations and necromass on soil organic carbon accrual," Cotrufo said.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/961721

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Do videos show ivory-billed woodpecker, or is it extinct?
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-videos-iv ... tinct.html
by JANET McCONNAUGHEY

The federal government has been asked to consider at least two videos made in recent years as evidence that ivory-billed woodpeckers may still exist.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in 2021 that it planned to declare 23 species extinct, including North America's largest woodpecker—also dubbed the Lord God bird after an exclamation sometimes made by viewers.

In July, the agency said it was adding six months, including a month for public comment, before deciding whether to declare extinction for the black-bodied bird with black-and-white wings, a 30-inch (76-centimeter) wingspan and a call reminiscent of a bulb bicycle horn. What's needed, the announcement said, was video or photos that all experts could agree showed the bird.

Two videos of black-and-white birds were submitted in July, along with extracts and extensive video presentations explaining why the contributors believe they show ivory-bills.

But the debate—so bitter that it prompted publication of a book last year about dozens of "thinking errors" on both sides—seems as heated as ever. A University of Kansas ornithologist called the videos laughable.

One is drone footage from a distance, showing a bird flying in front of trees and landing in one on Feb. 23, 2021.

"The landing sequence ... made me almost shout, 'Ivory-bill!'" Mark Michaels, founder of Project Principalis, a group created to search for live ivory-billed woodpeckers, told Fish and Wildlife officials in a video presentation made July 22 and posted Tuesday in the proposal's public comment area.

[weatheriscool]

Panda twins born in China as species struggles for survival
Source: AP

BEIJING (AP) — Twin giant pandas have been born at a breeding center in southwestern China, a sign of progress for the country’s unofficial national mascot as it struggles for survival amid climate change and loss of habitat.

The male and female cubs, born Tuesday at the Qinling Panda Research Center in Shaanxi province, are the second pair of twins born to their mother, Qin Qin. Another panda, Yong Yong, gave birth to twins at the center earlier this month.

Qin Qin was also born at the center and previously gave birth to twin females in 2020.

State media gave no word on the father, but Chinese veterinarians for years have been using artificial insemination to boost the population of the animals, which reproduce rarely in the wild and rely on a diet of bamboo in the mountains of western China.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/china-giant- ... f5e936d58a

[wjfox]

Huge recovery for butterfly once extinct in the UK

By Georgina Rannard
BBC News Climate & Science

1 hour ago

An endangered butterfly that was once extinct in the UK has had its best summer in 150 years.

The large blue butterfly is one of Europe's most endangered insects but thousands have been recorded this summer in south-west England.

It is the result of a long-term conservation project, led by the Royal Entomological Society.

Scientists said the success story shows how species at risk of extinction can be saved.

Many other rare species also benefitted from the conservation work across around 40 sites in Somerset and in the Cotswolds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62674800



Image source, Butterfly Conservation; Keith Warmington

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Updated Tree Survey May Assist Conservation Efforts
by Elana Spivak
August 26, 2022


Introduction:

(Inverse) ASK ANY FIRST GRADER what a tree looks like, and they’ll draw a characteristic closed, scalloped shape suspended with two parallel lines extending downward. But ask a tree expert, or dendrologist, and they’ll have a lot more trouble defining a tree.

“It’s more like a philosophical concept,” Murphy Westwood, director of global tree conservation at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, tells Inverse.

The first complete global tree database defines a tree as “a woody plant with usually a single stem growing to a height of at least two meters, or if multi-stemmed, then at least one vertical stem five centimeters in diameter at breast height.”

The biological definition of a tree is crucial when it comes to tracking the world’s roughly 60,000 tree species for risk of extinction. Too rigid a definition and some ailing trees may get left out. Westwood tells Inverse that the U.S. has two assessment platforms for trees: the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List and NatureServe. The Red List, she says, was greatly lacking, while NatureServe had a good deal of information, but was out of date.

A new survey published on August 22 in the journal Plants Planet People seeks to widen and consolidate information on both these lists. The survey, on which Westwood is a senior author, includes more than 800 native tree species in the contiguous U.S. This new dataset serves to consolidate comprehensive, timely information on the continental U.S.’s trees so that ecologists of all stripes may help conserve them.

Read more here: https://www.inverse.com/science/survey ... e-species



Here is more on NatureServe: https://explorer.natureserve.org/

Here is further information on the newest survey: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi ... 5-bib-0002

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Reintroducing Bison Results in Long-running and Resilient Increases in Grassland Diversity
August 29, 2022

Introduction:

(PNAS )

Significance

Large animals (megafauna) have cascading effects on populations, communities, and ecosystems. The magnitude of these effects is often unknown because native megafauna are missing from most ecosystems. We found that reintroducing bison—a formerly dominant megafauna and the national mammal of the United States—doubles plant diversity in a tallgrass prairie. These plant communities have few nonnative species and were resilient to an extreme drought. Domesticated megafauna (cattle), which have replaced native herbivores in many grasslands, produced less than half of this increase in plant species richness. Our results suggest that many grasslands in the Central Great Plains have substantially lower plant biodiversity than before widespread bison extirpation. Returning or “rewilding” native megafauna could help to restore grassland biodiversity.

Abstract

The widespread extirpation of megafauna may have destabilized ecosystems and altered biodiversity globally. Most megafauna extinctions occurred before the modern record, leaving it unclear how their loss impacts current biodiversity. We report the long-term effects of reintroducing plains bison (Bison bison) in a tallgrass prairie versus two land uses that commonly occur in many North American grasslands: 1) no grazing and 2) intensive growing-season grazing by domesticated cattle (Bos taurus). Compared to ungrazed areas, reintroducing bison increased native plant species richness by 103% at local scales (10 m2) and 86% at the catchment scale. Gains in richness continued for 29 y and were resilient to the most extreme drought in four decades. These gains are now among the largest recorded increases in species richness due to grazing in grasslands globally. Grazing by domestic cattle also increased native plant species richness, but by less than half as much as bison. This study indicates that some ecosystems maintain a latent potential for increased native plant species richness following the reintroduction of native herbivores, which was unmatched by domesticated grazers. Native-grazer gains in richness were resilient to an extreme drought, a pressure likely to become more common under future global environmental change.

Read more here (including an option following the Abstract to download a PDF of supporting information): https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2210433119