Large herbivores are linked to higher herbaceous plant diversity and functional redundancy across spatial scales
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Large herbivores can strongly influence plant communities. However, these effects are highly variable, potentially depending on the herbivore regime, that is, herbivore diversity and density. However, the role of the herbivore regime has been challenging to evaluate across spatial scales due to widespread defaunation and a lack of data on herbivore communities and their densities. Here, we investigated the effects of large herbivores along a gradient of trophic complexity (low to high herbivore diversity) and herbivory intensity (estimated from herbivore biomass and visitation frequency) on plant taxonomic and functional diversity at different scales (plot [n = 250], site [n = 50] and landscape [n = 10]) in 10 reserves in the savanna biome in South Africa. We found higher total plant species richness, driven by higher herbaceous (but not woody) plant species richness, in areas with higher herbivory intensity across multiple scales. While herbivores had no significant relationship with plant functional richness, we observed higher functional redundancy at all scales in areas more frequently visited by herbivores. Overall, herbivore-vegetation relationships were largely consistent across scales, and the strongest effects emerged at the largest scale. Our results show a positive relationship between large herbivores and both herbaceous plant species richness and plant functional redundancy, the latter suggesting higher vegetation resilience (the capacity of ecosystems to quickly recover from disturbances as different species compensate for the loss or decline of others). These effects are largely consistent across scales, indicating that the impact of herbivore regimes on plant communities is predominantly scale-independent and that large herbivores drive vegetation dynamics at both local and large scales. However, the stronger effects observed at the landscape scale imply that herbivore impacts manifest most prominently at larger scales. Altogether, our results suggest that restoring large herbivore populations can be expected to promote herbaceous plant diversity and ecosystem resilience.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".