Herbivory limits success of vegetation restoration globally

Abstract

Restoring vegetation in degraded ecosystems is an increasingly common practice for promoting biodiversity and ecological function, but successful implementation is hampered by an incomplete understanding of the processes that limit restoration success. By synthesizing terrestrial and aquatic studies globally (2594 experimental tests from 610 articles), we reveal substantial herbivore control of vegetation under restoration. Herbivores at restoration sites reduced vegetation abundance more strongly (by 89%, on average) than those at relatively undegraded sites and suppressed, rather than fostered, plant diversity. These effects were particularly pronounced in regions with higher temperatures and lower precipitation. Excluding targeted herbivores temporarily or introducing their predators improved restoration by magnitudes similar to or greater than those achieved by managing plant competition or facilitation. Thus, managing herbivory is a promising strategy for enhancing vegetation restoration efforts.

Co‐restoring keystone predators and foundation species to recover a coastal wetland

“…seeds, corms and seedlings) to expedite the recovery of foundation species (Derksen-Hooijberg et al, 2018;Silliman et al, 2015). Active restoration has also been widely reported to suffer from intense grazing pressure in many ecosystems (Bakker et al, 2018;MacDougall et al, 2010;Xu et al, 2023). This was also the case at our restoration site in the Yangtze River estuary (Qian et al, 2021).…”

“…Loss of keystone predators has been widely reported to release grazers out of predator control, intensify grazing pressure and drive collapse of ecosystems characterized by foundation species, such as salt marshes, grasslands and forests (Altieri et al, 2012;Atkins et al, 2019;Estes et al, 2011). Although an increasing number of studies have shown that controlling grazers can greatly enhance restoration of foundation species (Derksen-Hooijberg et al, 2018;Qian et al, 2021;Xu et al, 2023) and trophic rewilding-a strategy that adopts species introductions to restore top-down trophic interactions and balances of different trophic levels to promote selfregulating biodiverse ecosystems-is increasingly called for as a tool to enhance the passive recovery of natural ecosystems (Svenning et al, 2016), approaches to restore foundation species continue to largely neglect keystone predators.…”

Integrating functional traits into trophic rewilding science

“…While not explored in depth in this review, the implications of better understanding plant trait relationships with large herbivores will also aid in the design and implementation of plant-focused restoration projects as it has for other disturbances and ecosystem services (Laughlin, 2023a). Insights from applying a traits perspective to rewilding studies could also inform projects focused seeding and planting where herbivore pressure is a key bottleneck to survival and growth (Xu et al, 2023). Tools for designing species mixes for restoration based on their traits exist and are beginning to be used in an experimental setting (Andres et al, 2023;Ladouceur et al, 2022;Laughlin et al, 2018).…”

“…by weeds (Yannelli et al, 2018). However, herbivores can considerably reduce the establishment of plants in restoration projects (Xu et al, 2023). Therefore, while we focus here on how traits will help us predict and understand the ecosystem effects of large mammal reintroductions for rewilding, insights may also inform the design of species mixtures for seeding and planting activities where herbivory provides a strong bottleneck on establishment.…”

Response of Vegetation and Soil Property Changes by Photovoltaic Established Stations Based on a Comprehensive Meta-Analysis

“…Since the 1990s, meta-analysis has been introduced into ecological research and has received considerable attention and significant development [22][23][24][25]. Meta-analysis is widely employed in the field of ecology today [26][27][28][29].…”