Invertebrates in dung of large herbivores: consequences of rewilding

Large herbivores are increasingly being reintroduced in nature reserves in Europe: so-called 'rewilding'. These projects offer great possibilities to study the impact of large herbivores on ecosystem structure, diversity and functioning.

Large vertebrate herbivores have a key impact on carbon and nutrient cycling in ecosystems, as they feed on plant biomass and return dung to the soil food web. We have, however, a poor understanding of how dung inputs by reintroduced large herbivores affect invertebrate communities that recycle dung and thereby ecosystem functioning.

The goal of this project is to understand the impact of rewilding on invertebrate communities in dung in natural grasslands. You will perform field work in river floodplains with and without reintroduced large grazers, and monitor invertebrate colonization of herbivore dung, measure plant and soil characteristics, and determine dung breakdown.

This project will be carried out in collaboration with the nature development organization “Stichting Ark” (https://www.ark.eu/), which is interested in understanding the role of plant species driving community composition and diversity of invertebrates in herbivore dung.

One of the main field sites will be the Millingerwaard (the Netherlands).

Duration of the project: 6-9 months.