Ecological Impacts of Ungulate Herbivory in Forest Ecosystems
Summary
Ungulate herbivory exerts profound influence on forest structure, function and biodiversity by selectively removing foliage, shoots and saplings. Large herbivores such as deer, moose and wild bovids can regulate tree regeneration, alter understorey composition and modulate nutrient cycling through trampling, dung deposition and seed dispersal. Heavy browsing often suppresses palatable species, favouring less palatable graminoids, ferns or invasive plants and in turn reshaping successional trajectories. Such shifts may reduce tree recruitment, homogenise plant assemblages and disrupt mutualistic interactions with pollinators and mycorrhizal fungi. At landscape scales, interactions among herbivore density, climate and habitat configuration determine the susceptibility of forests to damage, with context-dependent outcomes for productivity, carbon storage and habitat provision. Effective management of ungulate populations, combined with silvicultural treatments and adaptive fencing, has been shown to mitigate negative effects while preserving the ecological role of native herbivores in maintaining habitat heterogeneity and resilience.
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Ecological Impacts of Ungulate Herbivory in Forest Ecosystems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in ecological impacts of ungulate herbivory in forest ecosystems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Ungulate herbivory: consumption of plant material by hoofed mammals such as deer, moose and cattle, shaping plant community structure.
Understorey vegetation: layer of shrubs, herbaceous plants and saplings beneath the forest canopy.
Browsing pressure: intensity of foliage and shoot consumption by herbivores on woody and non-woody plants.
Exclosure: fenced area preventing entry of large herbivores to study vegetation responses in their absence.
Successional trajectory: sequence of plant community changes over time following disturbance, influenced by herbivory.
References
- Manipulating ungulate herbivory in temperate and boreal forests: effects on vegetation and invertebrates. A systematic review. Environmental Evidence (2018).
- Forest damage by deer depends on cross‐scale interactions between climate, deer density and landscape structure. Journal of Applied Ecology (2020).
- Community-level impacts of white-tailed deer on understorey plants in North American forests: a meta-analysis. AoB Plants (2015).
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