Rewilding Research

From thermal resistance to rapid wound healing, growing research shows how positive species interactions between Coral-dwelling fish and Corals help marine ecosystems survive warming seas and physical threats; marine experts weigh in on how aquarium trade threats and destructive fishing necessitate protecting these fish as they are essential for overall reef survival.

From thermal resistance to rapid wound healing, growing research shows how positive species interactions between Coral-dwelling fish and Corals help marine ecosystems survive warming seas and physical threats; marine experts weigh in on how aquarium trade threats and destructive fishing necessitate protecting these fish as they are essential for overall reef survival.

This study conducted in French Polynesia shows Damselfish help wounded Corals heal faster, with recovery rates increasing by 55% for large wounds and 38% for small wounds, highlighting the key role of fish habitat protection in Coral conservation.

Geremia et al. performed grazing exclusion experiments to examine the effects of bison on soil and vegetation across their migration area. Grazed areas had higher soil microbe density and nitrogen content in both soils and plants. When they are given large areas to roam, bison create habitat heterogeneity and areas with enhanced nutrition that can support denser populations than are deemed...

Preserving and restoring terrestrial ecosystems is essential to preventing the decline of life on Earth. To guide global conservation efforts, this paper presents a detailed counterfactual map showing Earth’s natural tree, short vegetation, and bare ground cover. This map accounts for environmental filtering along with realistic scenarios of fire frequency and wildlife herbivory. The most likely...

This study explores the early effects, over a three-year period, of a transition from extensive commercial cattle grazing to semi-wild horse grazing in two rewilding areas in the Côa Valley region, Portugal. Using grazing exclusion areas as control, the study tests whether the less intensive regime of semi-wild horse grazing can be used to manage vegetation structure and composition, to mitigate...

In this invited commentary, Schmitz reviews the newly published research in Global Change Biology. Schmitz comments that Roberts et al. (2025) address this formidable challenge to reveal how varying abundance and outright loss of a large predator—the tiger (Panthera tigris)—and the abundance of its “deer” (i.e., ungulate) prey species are related to the capture and storage of carbon in forests...

Globally, forests with tigers living within them store more vegetation carbon than forests without tigers, near consistently across forest habitat types. Our results also showed that in disturbed forests, tigers appear to exert top-down control of carbon stocks through impacts on ungulate biomass where ungulate biomass and carbon stocks are low; in contrast, in more established forests with...

We synthesize evidence for patterns, causes and consequences of recent change in fire regimes across the Eurasian steppes, a neglected global fire hotspot. Key future research topics include the effects of future climate change, changing pyrodiversity and pyric herbivory on ecosystem resilience. Ongoing steppe restoration and rewilding efforts, and integrated fire management will benefit from a...

This study brings key additional evidence to show that the recovery of whale populations will increase the resilience and adaptive capacity of oceanic ecosystems around the globe. The study looked at humpback, grey and right whales and how they feed over vast areas close to the poles during the summer months and then transport nutrients they build up on their bodies, thousands of miles to...

The study challenges the long-standing assumption that Europe’s temperate landscapes were uniformly covered by closed forest before human impact. They use pollen analyses to reconstruct vegetation patterns from the Last Interglacial and uncover a highly heterogeneous landscape - not the dense, continuous forests often assumed.

A meta-analysis to explore whether rewilding aimed at increasing biodiversity, disturbance stochasticity or connectivity increase ecosystem resilience. Rewilding generally enhances resilience with nearly 70% of observations reporting positive outcomes, 10% neutral and 20% negative. Enhancing connectivity is underrepresented, highlighting a gap in addressing this ecological function for...

Fabien Quétier, Head of Landscapes at Rewilding Europe, has co-authored another important study that, in his words "Highlights the importance of understanding and integrating social, ecological, and social-ecological relations in climate change adaptation, revealing four archetypes that guide effective strategies for adaptation. The global rewilding movement keeps giving me hope in that it...

This paper, focussing mainly on plants, shows how large herbivores directly impact ecosystem diversity and functionality through changes to selection, speciation, drift and dispersal.

This briefing paper aims to clarify and elevate the role of wood-based materials and regenerative forestry in a circular economy. As users of wood-based materials, the co-project participants evaluate current forestry practices and the opportunities of regenerative forestry for nature, the economy, and society.

Islands are currently hotspots of biological and cultural diversity but face threats from invasive species and climate change. Invasive mammal eradication on islands is a proven conservation intervention that helps reduce biodiversity loss.

We surveyed Montana, USA residents representing five stakeholder groups (local ranchers, statewide ranchers, rural residents, urban residents and members of conservation organizations) to assess public attitudes and behaviors towards a suite of species and ecological processes targeted for multi-species restoration in the Northern Great Plains. We also evaluated levels of public support for...

The extent of vegetation openness in past European landscapes is widely debated. In particular, the temperate forest biome has traditionally been defined as dense, closed-canopy forest; however, some argue that large herbivores maintained greater openness or even wood-pasture conditions. Here, the authors address this question for the Last Interglacial period (129,000–116,000 years ago), before...

While human-driven biological invasions are rapidly spreading, finding scalable and effective control methods poses an unresolved challenge. Here, the authors assess whether megaherbivores—herbivores reaching ≥1,000 kg of body mass—offer a nature-based solution to plant invasions. Invasive plants are generally adapted to maximize vegetative growth. Megaherbivores, with broad dietary tolerances,...

In this perspective, we aim to help the scientific, practitioner and policy communities interested in nature recovery to appreciate the benefits of integrating restoration and rewilding approaches. We then call on them to support the emergence of infrastructures and frameworks that facilitate the coordination and integration of the restoration and rewilding agendas.

Large herbivores play unique ecological roles and are disproportionately imperiled by human activity. As many wild populations dwindle towards extinction, and as interest grows in restoring lost biodiversity, research on large herbivores and their ecological impacts has intensified. Yet, results are often conflicting or contingent on local conditions, and new findings have challenged...

This study addresses this gap for conservation decision makers responsible for seabirds and coastal management. We systematically reviewed active seabird restoration projects worldwide and collated results into a publicly accessible Seabird Restoration Database.

Research suggests that there existed local win−win synergies between ecosystem health and sustainable livelihoods and/or socioeconomic development. However, the identification of such win−win solutions for regional policymaking is still in progress, as benefits and incentives change across scales.

The authors introduce Natural Infrastructure in Dryland Streams (NIDS), which are structures naturally or anthropogenically created from earth, wood, debris, or rock that can restore implicit function of these systems. In addition, we present the novel, evidence-based finding that NIDS can create wetlands in water-scarce riparian zones, with soil organic carbon stock as much as 200 to 1400 Mg...

Eradication of invasive mammals and restoration of native biota are promising tools to address both island and ocean management goals. The magnitude of the marine benefits of island restoration, however, is unlikely to be consistent across the globe. We propose a list of six environmental characteristics most likely to affect the strength of land–sea linkages: precipitation, elevation,...

The conflicts between protection and development are understood as the conflicts between ecological systems and social systems through dynamic land transitions such as land use (human control) and land cover (biophysical control).

High-diversity grasslands are increasingly recognized as “old-growth” communities, having assembled over at least millennia, and often much, much longer. Human-caused disturbance frequently disassembles such communities, reducing them to lower-diversity states. A substantial challenge to conservationists interested in habitat restoration is to reassemble high-diversity communities that have been...

Conservation priorities for non-federally listed seabirds breeding within the U.S. Pacific Islands (USPI), with a focus on seabird colony restoration using social attraction and translocation. It covers five distinct geographic regions: the Main Hawaiian Islands (MHI), the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) including Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the Commonwealth of the Northern...

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.

This paper argues that far from being half of an unhelpful dichotomy, intrinsic natural values are incontrovertible elements of any honest effort to sustain Earth's biodiversity. The "good life" they support is a good life for humans, and not for nonhuman beings or collectives. While passingly acknowledging intrinsic natural values, the current IPBES platform gives little attention to these, and...

Two major environmental challenges of our time are responding to climate change and reversing biodiversity decline. Interventions that simultaneously tackle both challenges are highly desirable. To date, most studies aiming to find synergistic interventions for these two challenges have focused on protecting or restoring vegetation and soils but overlooked how conservation or restoration of...

The seabird meta-population viability model (mPVA) projects population trends and extinction risk for 102 seabird species under different conservation scenarios. It uses a stage-structured matrix model accounting for breeding island features, dispersal, and spatial distribution. Data sources include published and grey literature and expert input from over 500 contributors. Impacts of invasive...

"Here, we review the evidence on whether management with herbivores can reduce fuel load and mitigate wildfires, and if so, how to identify suitable management that can achieve fire mitigation objectives while providing other ecosystem services. We systematically reviewed studies that investigated links between herbivores, fire hazard, fire frequency and fire damage. We found that, in general,...

Conservation efforts should target the few remaining areas of the world that represent outstanding examples of ecological integrity and aim to restore ecological integrity to much broader areas with intact habitat and minimal species loss.

Desecheo Island, once a key seabird habitat in the Caribbean, saw major declines due to invasive mammals and past military use. Conservation efforts began in 1976, leading to the eradication of goats, macaques, and rats by 2016. In 2018, social attraction methods (decoys, mirrors and sound systems,) were introduced to aid seabird recovery, targeting bridled terns, brown noddies, and the...

There has been much recent interest in the concept of rewilding as a tool for nature conservation, but also confusion over the idea, which has limited its utility. The authors of this paper developed a unifying definition and 10 guiding principles for rewilding through a survey of 59 rewilding experts, a summary of key organizations’ rewilding visions, and workshops involving over 100...

Landscape-scale ecological restoration of agricultural land can potentially increase the contribution of this land to economic development and employment, by increasing flows of all ES other than those associated with agricultural production. The evidence provided by this research therefore supports calls for investment in natural capital, using approaches such as ecological restoration and...

Thanks to the generous support from the Packard Marine Bird Program, the Seabird Restoration Database was developed as the first conservation database of its kind, documenting global efforts to restore seabirds using active restoration techniques. Between 2020 and 2022, data were collated from literature, reports, and databases, and consultations were conducted with over 500 seabird experts to...

Plans to triple the area of plantations will not meet 1.5 degree climate goals. New and restored natural forests can help remove atmospheric carbon and lock it up within ecosystems in a safe and affordable way. (This article is behind a paywall)

Eradicating invasive mammals from islands is a feasible and proven approach to prevent biodiversity loss. We developed a conceptual framework to identify globally important islands for invasive mammal eradications to prevent imminent extinctions of highly threatened species using biogeographic and technical factors, plus a novel approach to consider socio-political feasibility.

There is increasing evidence that this global wildlife loss, or defaunation, does not only imply the loss of charismatic animals but also the functions they have in ecosystems. To restore these missing functions, a novel ecological restoration technique has emerged, referred to as rewilding. Rewilding aims to restore natural processes in ecosystems in general, and often focuses on...

It is predicted that predator-induced trophic cascades could have important impacts on ecosystem carbon cycling. Yet the magnitude and direction of predator impacts on carbon cycling have not been widely quantified until now.

This study brings key additional evidence to show that the recovery of whale populations will increase the resilience and adaptive capacity of oceanic ecosystems around the globe. The study looked at humpback, grey and right whales and how they feed over vast areas close to the poles during the summer months and then transport nutrients they build up on their bodies, thousands of miles to...