review · Nature Ecology & Evolution
A global meta-analysis encompassing nearly three hundred studies across six continents examines how wild herbivorous megafauna influence terrestrial ecosystem properties and spatial heterogeneity. The synthesis demonstrates that large herbivores significantly change soil nutrient availability, encourage open vegetation structure, and lower the abundance of smaller animals. However, fourteen out of twenty-six measured ecosystem responses, including soil carbon, show no significant overall alteration. In addition, large herbivores substantially boost ecosystem heterogeneity by varying vegetation structure and the diversity and abundance of smaller wildlife across landscapes. Because spatial heterogeneity underpins broad ecological diversity, restoring these animals following historical declines would significantly reshape terrestrial ecosystems and could enhance biodiversity on a large scale.
Large wild herbivores have suffered severe declines over millennia, yet their overall ecological influence has remained insufficiently quantified on a global scale. Demonstrating that megafauna foster spatial heterogeneity and reshape plant and animal communities provides an evidence base for assessing how reintroducing or conserving these animals could reshape terrestrial habitats and support broader biodiversity conservation initiatives worldwide.
The abstract describes fundamental ecological research rather than an applied technology or commercial product. However, the findings provide baseline evidence that conservation managers, rewilding initiatives, and land restoration bodies could use to guide ecological restoration strategies and ecosystem management plans. The work remains at an early, foundational stage, offering high-level scientific insights rather than a direct commercialisation pathway.
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Megafauna (animals ≥45 kg) have probably shaped the Earth's terrestrial ecosystems for millions of years with pronounced impacts on biogeochemistry, vegetation, ecological communities and evolutionary processes. However, a quantitative global synthesis on the generality of megafauna effects on ecosystems is lacking. Here we conducted a meta-analysis of 297 studies and 5,990 individual observations across six continents to determine how wild herbivorous megafauna influence ecosystem structure, ecological processes and spatial heterogeneity, and whether these impacts depend on body size and environmental factors. Despite large variability in megafauna effects, we show that megafauna significantly alter soil nutrient availability, promote open vegetation structure and reduce the abundance of smaller animals. Other responses (14 out of 26), including, for example, soil carbon, were not significantly affected. Further, megafauna significantly increase ecosystem heterogeneity by affecting spatial heterogeneity in vegetation structure and the abundance and diversity of smaller animals. Given that spatial heterogeneity is considered an important driver of biodiversity across taxonomic groups and scales, these results support the hypothesis that megafauna may promote biodiversity at large scales. Megafauna declined precipitously in diversity and abundance since the late Pleistocene, and our results indicate that their restoration would substantially influence Earth's terrestrial ecosystems.
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DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02327-6
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