An ecoregion-based approach to restoring the world’s intact large mammal assemblages

Assemblages of large mammal species play a disproportionate role in the structure and composition of natural habitats. Loss of these assemblages destabilizes natural systems, while their recovery can restore ecological integrity. Here we take an ecoregion-based approach to identify landscapes that retain their historically present large mammal assemblages, and map ecoregions where reintroduction of 1–3 species could restore intact assemblages. Intact mammal assemblages occur across more than one-third of the 730 terrestrial ecoregions where large mammals were historically present, and 22% of these ecoregions retain complete assemblages across >20% of the ecoregion area. Twenty species, if reintroduced or allowed to recolonize through improved connectivity, can trigger restoration of complete assemblages over 54% of the terrestrial realm (11,116,000 km2). Each of these species have at least two large, intact habitat areas (>10,000 km2) in a given ecoregion. Timely integration of re...大型哺乳动物类群（large mammal assemblages）对自然栖息地的结构与组成发挥着不成比例的关键作用。此类类群的丧失会破坏自然生态系统的稳定性，而其种群恢复则可重塑生态系统完整性。本研究采用基于生态区（ecoregion）的研究方法，对仍保有历史原有大型哺乳动物类群的区域进行识别，并绘制可通过引入1至3个物种种群以恢复完整类群的生态区分布图谱。在历史上曾分布有大型哺乳动物的730个陆地生态区中，超过三分之一的区域仍存在完整的哺乳动物类群；其中22%的生态区在其超20%的区域范围内均保留了完整的类群。若通过优化栖息地连通性，使20个物种种群得以重新引入或自然回迁定殖，则可在全球54%的陆地范围（1111.6万平方千米）内促成完整哺乳动物类群的恢复。上述每个物种种群在对应生态区内均至少拥有两处面积超1万平方千米的完整大型栖息地。对……的及时整合