Giant tortoises show rewilding can work - Biology News Net
The introduced Aldabra tortoises not only ingested the large fruits and dispersed large numbers of ebony seeds, but the process of passing through a tortoise's gut also improved seed germination, leading to the widespread, successful establishment... Christine Griffiths said: "Our results demonstrate that the introduction of these effective seed dispersers is aiding the recovery of this critically endangered tree whose seeds were previously seed-dispersal limited. There is, however, increasing evidence that restoration ecologists should be most concerned with the decline of species interactions, rather than species extinctions per se. Species interactions structure ecological communities, and provide... Exotic giant Aldabra tortoises, Aldabrachelys gigantea , were introduced to Ile aux Aigrettes, a 25-hectare island off Mauritius, in 2000 to disperse the slow-growing ebony Diospyros egrettarum ( Ebenaceae ), which once covered the island, but... To highlight the extent to which the ebony forest had been decimated, the researchers surveyed and mapped all ebony trees in an island-wide survey in 2007 and located a total of 3,518 adult trees. There had been no regeneration in these areas even though logging ceased thirty years ago because, with the extinction of the island's native giant tortoises, there were no large fruit-eating animals left to disperse the seeds of these... In a paper published today in Current Biology , Christine Griffiths of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences and colleagues present the first empirical evidence that rewilding can work. However, large tracts of the island remained denuded of ebony, particularly in the northern and eastern coastal areas nearest to the mainland where logging was most intense. Professor Stephen Harris, co-author of the study, said: "Ecological restoration projects generally involve the plant community, as more often the animal components are extinct.
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