Ecosystems world-wide are increasingly affected by human-induced global change, including over-exploitation of living systems, temperature rise, eutrophication and exotic species proliferation, resulting in a biodiversity crisis. Furthermore, human societies increasingly experience disasters such as flooding events and wildfires. Therefore, new thinking is needed to address these pressing societal and biodiversity conservation challenges. Trophic rewilding could potentially offer such a new way of thinking, as it is a future-oriented and dynamic restoration strategy. Trophic rewilding uses species introductions to restore top-down trophic interactions where these are currently missing and advocates new ways of land management. As such trophic rewilding can contribute to finding solutions for flooding, drought and wildfire problems, and can provide climate change mitigation, mitigation of invasive species and mitigation of biodiversity decline. This theme issue evaluates how trophic rewilding interacts with the major global changes to affect ecosystems.
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https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0446
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0433

Cover image
European bison (Bos bonasus), Kennemerduinen National Park, Kraansvlak, The Netherlands. Photo credit: Staff an Widstrand/Rewilding Europe.