2025/03/10 by Hendrik Bluhm, Rafał Kowalczyk, Wanda Olech +3 · 1 voice · 2 citations
Environmental Science · Veterinary · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation #Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies #Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock
paper · doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111074
Restoring populations of large mammals in human-dominated landscapes requires careful planning of conservation strategies. To support such planning for the European bison ( Bison bonasus ), Europe's largest land mammal currently constrained to small and isolated populations, we parameterized an individual-based, spatially-explicit metapopulation model. We then systematically assessed the impacts of three conservation interventions: 1) connectivity restoration with wildlife overpasses, 2) additional reintroductions, and 3) reduced supplementary feeding to encourage dispersal. Our baseline model projected a doubling of bison abundance in Central Europe within 30 years to >2250 females (in 20 occupied habitat patches), reaching >4300 females (38 patches) within 100 years. Yet subpopulations often remained isolated, highlighting the need for interventions to increase connectivity to prevent a further erosion of already low genetic diversity. Of the interventions we tested, reintroductions were most effective (5 % abundance increase, 10 % patch occupancy increase, on average, after 50 years) and helped establish larger metapopulations that are important for maintaining genetic diversity. Individual wildlife overpasses had a small effect (1 % range increase). Reducing supplementary feeding did not promote range expansion and slightly slowed population growth. We found that the five extant subpopulations in north-eastern Poland could form a viable metapopulation and identified two additional promising regions for such metapopulations: (1) Western Poland/Eastern Germany, and (2) the Eastern Carpathians in Poland/Slovakia. Overall, our findings underscore the potential for European megafauna recovery, highlight the key role of reintroductions to help megafauna reclaim their historical ranges, and can guide more fine-scale assessments of the social-ecological feasibility of such recoveries.