Overabundant populations of large wild herbivores disrupt plant-pollinator networks in a Mediterranean ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: Large herbivores are keystone species, so changes in their population abundance can have cascading effects on ecosystems. Over the last decades, many species of deer (Cervidae) have experienced unprecedented densities across many areas of the Northern Hemisphere, potentially leading to simplification of plant-pollinator communities, disruption of their interactions, and destabilization of ecological networks. Our study explores the impacts of increasing red deer (Cervus elaphus) densities on plant-pollinator networks. We describe, to our knowledge, the first large wild herbivore manipulative experiment with increasing densities, consisting of comparable hectare-scale enclosures in a Mediterranean ecosystem. We simulated two current scenarios of deer overabundance: high densities (>30 indiv

SUBMITTER: Hernandez-Castellano C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12477310 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature