School for Forest Management, Faculty of Forest Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 739 21, Skinnskatteberg, Sweden.
Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 901 83, Umeå, Sweden.
Ambio. 2021 Jan;50(1):101-112. doi: 10.1007/s13280-020-01320-0. Epub 2020 Mar 9.
Large herbivores play key roles in terrestrial ecosystems. Continuous defaunation processes have produced cascade effects on plant community composition, vegetation structure, and even climate. Wood-pastures were created by traditional management practices that have maintained open structures and biodiversity for millennia. In Europe, despite the broad recognition of their biological importance, such landscapes are declining due to land-use changes. This calls for finding urgent solutions for wood-pasture conservation. To test whether introducing an ecological replacement of an extinct wild horse could have positive effects on wood-pasture restoration, we designed a 3-year rewilding experiment. Horses created a more open wood-pasture structure by browsing on seedlings and saplings, affected tree composition via selective browsing and controlled the colonization of woody vegetation in grassland-dominated areas. Thus, rewilding could be a potential avenue for wood-pasture restoration and biodiversity conservation. However, such benefits may not materialize without a necessary paradigm and political shift.
大型食草动物在陆地生态系统中发挥着关键作用。持续的去动物化过程对植物群落组成、植被结构，甚至气候产生了级联效应。木草原是通过传统的管理实践创造的，这些实践已经维持了几千年的开放结构和生物多样性。在欧洲，尽管人们广泛认识到它们具有重要的生物学意义，但由于土地利用的变化，这种景观正在减少。这就要求我们寻找保护木草原的紧急解决方案。为了测试引入已灭绝野生马的生态替代物是否会对木草原恢复产生积极影响，我们设计了一个为期 3 年的重新野生化实验。马通过啃食幼苗和幼树，创造了一个更加开放的木草原结构，通过选择性啃食影响树木组成，并控制以草地为主的地区木本植被的殖民化。因此，重新野生化可能是木草原恢复和生物多样性保护的一种潜在途径。然而，如果没有必要的范式和政治转变，这些好处可能不会实现。
