Ecological Dynamics of Bison and Grassland Ecosystems

Bison are pivotal drivers of grassland structure and function, acting as keystone species that shape plant communities through selective grazing, wallowing and nutrient redistribution. Their grazing patterns create a mosaic of vegetation patches, promoting biodiversity by preventing dominance of a few grass species and facilitating recruitment of forbs and shrubs. Wallowing behaviour generates microhabitats that support arthropod heterogeneity and soil disturbance, further enhancing ecological complexity. At broader scales, bison influence fire regimes by consuming fine fuels and altering fuel continuity, thereby modulating fire intensity and frequency. Climatic warming and land-use changes are reshaping grassland productivity and nutritional quality, prompting bison to adjust diet composition and foraging strategies. Technological advances such as airborne laser scanning and DNA metabarcoding have refined our understanding of habitat preferences, dietary breadth and movement patterns. Conservation and restoration efforts increasingly employ species distribution models and connectivity analyses to identify suitable reintroduction sites and corridors that balance ecological integrity with human land-use. Rewilding initiatives on tribal and protected lands emphasise both the ecological engineering functions of bison and their cultural and socio-economic value. Integrating long-term palaeoecological insights with contemporary field studies and spatial modelling underpins adaptive management in a warming world and supports the global aim of resilient, biodiverse grassland ecosystems.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies using airborne laser scanning have demonstrated that European bison consistently select forest and grassland interfaces characterised by low canopy cover and reduced understory density. Models based on high-resolution three-dimensional data outperform traditional habitat classifications in predicting bison movements, revealing universal preference indicators that are independent of regional vegetation typologies. Another line of research has investigated the impact of climatic warming on North American bison diet using DNA metabarcoding across a 6 °C temperature gradient. As grass protein concentrations decline in warmer sites, bison increase consumption of nitrogen-fixing eudicots, thereby compensating for reduced forage quality. These findings suggest that management strategies should promote high-protein plant species or enhance grass nutritional value to buffer warming-induced nutritional stress in large grazers.

Ecological Dynamics of Bison and Grassland Ecosystems publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in ecological dynamics of bison and grassland ecosystems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Ecosystem engineering: The process by which organisms physically modify, create or maintain habitats, affecting resource availability for other species.

Habitat Suitability Index: A quantitative model that rates the ability of a given area to support a species based on environmental variables.

Airborne laser scanning (LiDAR): A remote-sensing technique using laser pulses from aircraft to generate high-resolution three-dimensional representations of vegetation structure.

Circuit theory modelling: A spatial analysis method that uses analogues to electrical circuits to assess landscape connectivity and movement pathways for wildlife.

Eudicots: A clade of flowering plants characterised by two seed leaves, comprising many forbs and shrubs that contribute protein-rich forage.

References

1. An assessment of the habitat preferences of European bison with airborne laser scanning data in forest ecosystem. Scientific Reports (2023).
2. Millennial processes of population decline, range contraction and near extinction of the European bison. Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2023).
3. Widespread habitat for Europe's largest herbivores, but poor connectivity limits recolonization. Diversity and Distributions (2023).
4. Ecosystem engineering by bison (Bison bison) wallowing increases arthropod community heterogeneity in space and time. Ecosphere (2018).
5. The Potential of Bison Restoration as an Ecological Approach to Future Tribal Food Sovereignty on the Northern Great Plains. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2022).