Rewilding (conservation biology)

Rewilding is a form of ecological restoration aimed at increasing biodiversity and restoring natural processes. It differs from ecological restoration in that, while human intervention may be involved, rewilding aspires to reduce human influence on ecosystems. It is also distinct in that, while it places emphasis on recovering geographically specific sets of ecological interactions and functions that would have maintained ecosystems prior to human influence, rewilding is open to novel or emerging ecosystems which encompass new species and new interactions. A key feature of rewilding is its focus on replacing human interventions with natural processes. The aim is to create resilient, self-regulating and self-sustaining ecosystems. While rewilding initiatives can be controversial, the United Nations has listed rewilding as one of several methods needed to achieve massive scale restoration of natural ecosystems, which they say must be accomplished by 2030 as part of the 30x30 campaign. The term rewilding was coined by members of the grassroots network Earth First!, first appearing in print in 1990. It was refined and grounded in a scientific context in a paper published in 1998 by conservation biologists Michael Soulé and Reed Noss. Soulé and Noss envisaged rewilding as a conservation method based on the concept of 'cores, corridors, and carnivores'. Cores, corridors and carnivores (or the '3Cs') was based on the theory that large predators play regulatory roles in ecosystems. 3Cs rewilding therefore relied on protecting 'core' areas of wild land, linked together by 'corridors' allowing passage for 'carnivores' to move around the landscape and perform their functional role. The concept was developed further in 1999 and Earth First co-founder, Dave Foreman, subsequently wrote a full-length book on rewilding as a conservation strategy. Rewilding was developed as a method to preserve functional ecosystems and reduce biodiversity loss, incorporating research in island biogeography and the ecological role of large carnivores.

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Pleistocene rewilding

Pleistocene rewilding is the advocacy of the reintroduction of extant Pleistocene megafauna, or the close ecological equivalents of extinct megafauna. It is an extension of the conservation practice of rewilding, which involves reintroducing species to areas where they became extinct in recent history (hundreds of years ago or less). Towards the end of the Pleistocene era (roughly 13,000 to 10,000 years ago), nearly all megafauna of Eurasia, Australia, and South/North America, dwindled towards extinction, in what has been referred to as the Quaternary extinction event.

Species translocation

Assisted migration Translocation in wildlife conservation is the capture, transport and release or introduction of species, habitats or other ecological material (such as soil) from one location to another. It contrasts with reintroduction, a term which is generally used to denote the introduction into the wild of species from captive stock. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) catalogues translocation projects for threatened species around the globe.

Species reintroduction

Species reintroduction is the deliberate release of a species into the wild, from captivity or other areas where the organism is capable of survival. The goal of species reintroduction is to establish a healthy, genetically diverse, self-sustaining population to an area where it has been extirpated, or to augment an existing population. Species that may be eligible for reintroduction are typically threatened or endangered in the wild.

Hydrologic Drivers and Controls of Stream Ecological Processes

Serena Ceola

The temporal variability of streamflows is a key feature structuring and controlling ecological communities and ecosystem processes. The magnitude, frequency and predictability of streamflows, and thus of velocity and near-bed shear stress fields, control ...

EPFL2012

Long-term effects of grazing exclusion on aboveground and belowground plant species diversity in a steppe of the Loess Plateau, China

Background and aims - Livestock grazing exclusion was widely used to manage degraded grassland ecosystems, but little is known on the effects of long-term grazing exclusion on aboveground and belowground species diversity of the steppe vegetation in China. ...

2011

Observation of Transverse Polarization Asymmetries of Charged Pion Pairs in e(+)e(-) Annihilation near root s=10.58 GeV

Olivier Schneider, Yiming Li, Mingkui Wang, Chao Wang, Tagir Aushev, Vladislav Balagura, Remi Léandre Albert Louvot

The interference fragmentation function translates the fragmentation of a quark with a transverse projection of the spin into an azimuthal asymmetry of two final-state hadrons. In e(+)e(-) annihilation the product of two interference fragmentation function ...

2011

Architecture and Forests: A Sociological Perspective AR-401(m): Studio MA1 (Gay and Menzel)

Explores the sociological perspective on the relationship between architecture and forests, emphasizing the need for a paradigm shift towards sustainable coexistence with nature.

Dynamics of Material Points: Center of Mass and Kinematics PHYS-101(f): General physics : mechanics

Explores the dynamics of material points, center of mass, kinematics, and conservation principles.