Good News In Case The IPCC Report Got You Depressed

Image Credit: Charlie Marshall, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped
Image Credit: Charlie Marshall, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped
A reintroduced ecosystem engineer species may exacerbate ongoing biological invasion: selective foraging of the Eurasian beaver in floodplains (2020) Juhasz et al., Global Ecology and Conservation, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01383
The reintroduction of species to an area from which they have been wiped out can have benefits which extend beyond that one species. Often they can restore ecological functions that have since been lost, which can result in everything from an increase in biodiversity to restructuring of an entire landscape.
That last example might seem a bit far-fetched, but beavers (Castor fiber) are capable of just that. Their damming activities can change river flows and restore healthy floodplains, and as such beavers are the target of a large reintroduction campaign now occurring throughout much of Europe.
But what happens when a species like the beaver is reintroduced to an ecosystem that has seen significant changes since it has been gone, like the introduction of invasive species? Today’s authors wanted to find out whether or not the presence of the beaver benefited native plants, or whether it made things easier for the invasive species.
Read moreTasmanian Devil at the Zoo Duisburg, in 2017. The only zoo in Germany that keeps them. (Credit: Mathias Appel / CC0)
The Burmese python, which has spread throughout the Everglades in Florida as a result of accidental or intentional releases by pet owners (Image Credit: US NInvaders, Aliens, and tational Park Service, Public Domain Mark 1.0, Image Cropped)
African forest elephants populations are declining rapidly due to local human pressures. But is it fair to expect other humans to live among potential threats to their livelihood? (Image Credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters, Public Domain Mark 1.0, Image Cropped)
When species like this toucanet are lost, the interactions that they are a part of are lost too. So how can we restore them? (Image Credit: Jairmoreirafotografia, CC BY-SA 4.0, Image Cropped)
Estimating interaction credit for trophic rewilding in tropical forests (2018) Marjakangas, E.-L. et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Biology, 373, https://dx.doi/10.1098/rstb.2017.0435
We have reviewed more than enough papers on biodiversity loss to entitle us to skip the whole “losing species is bad” spiel (see here, here and here). But what we haven’t talked about is that when some species are lost, specific interactions that those species participate in disappear from an ecosystem. Those interactions range from the minute to the crucial. One such crucial example is that of seed dispersal, whereby specific plants rely on specific animals to disperse their seeds, thus maximising biodiversity in other parts of the forest and creating a positive feedback loop.
Naturally, conservationists will want to reintroduce animals to propagate some of these reactions. But as is always the case in conservation, maximising return is absolutely essential when you’re faced with limited resources and a lot of ground to cover. Today’s authors wanted to develop a system for maximising the effect of species reintroduction.
Image Credit: Per Harald Olsen, NTNU, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped
Image Credit: Doug Smith, NPS, Public Domain, Image Cropped