SynthesisNature communications2019
Quantifying the impacts of defaunation on natural forest regeneration in a global meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Nature communications, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Indigenous and local knowledge inclusion in forest fauna research: A systematic review in the tropics.Ambio · 2026Pooled it
- Meta-analysis reveals that vertebrates enhance plant litter decomposition at the global scale.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Pooled it
- Arboreal and Terrestrial Frugivore Vertebrate Assemblage Diversity and Composition Vary With Disturbance Histories in Guianan Forests.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- What evidence exists on the drivers, ecological and socio-economic outcomes, and distribution of hunting in Peru: a systematic map protocol.Environmental evidence · 2026Article
- Biodiversity resilience in a tropical rainforest.Nature · 2026Article
- Seed disperser connectivity in a heterogeneous landscape of the Colombian Coffee Region.PloS one · 2026Article
- Biodiversity conservation depends on the expansion of taxonomy and systematics research.Journal of mammalogy · 2025Article
- Cascading Effects of Overhunting on the Functional Tree Composition of Amazonian Forests.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Legacy of the Lost and Pressure of the Present: Malagasy Plant Seeds Retain Megafauna Dispersal Signatures but Downsize Under Human Pressure.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Seed dispersal disruption limits tropical forest regrowth.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Range-Wide Camera Trapping for the Australian Cassowary Reveals Habitat Associations With Rainfall and Forest Quality.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- The need for carbon finance schemes to tackle overexploitation of tropical forest wildlife.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2025Article
- Potential effects of brown howler monkey extinction on dispersal services in fragmented forests void of large dispersers.Primates; journal of primatology · 2024Article
- Human disturbance increases spatiotemporal associations among mountain forest terrestrial mammal species.eLife · 2024Article
- Article
- Accelerated cropland expansion into high integrity forests and protected areas globally in the 21st century.iScience · 2023Article
- Fifteen essential science advances needed for effective restoration of the world's forest landscapes.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Validation of complementary non-invasive tools for stress assessment in spotted paca (Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2023Article
- Rehabilitation and release of confiscated songbirds into the wild: A pilot study.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2023Article
- Defaunation is known to have pervasive, negative effects on tropical forests, but this is not the whole story.PloS one · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Intact forests provide diverse and irreplaceable ecosystem services that are critical to human well-being, such as carbon storage to mitigate climate change. However, the ecosystem functions that underpin these services are highly dependent on the woody vegetation-animal interactions occurring within forests. While vertebrate defaunation is of growing policy concern, the effects of vertebrate loss on natural forest regeneration have yet to be quantified globally. Here we conduct a meta-analysis to assess the direction and magnitude of defaunation impacts on forests. We demonstrate that real-world defaunation caused by hunting and habitat fragmentation leads to reduced forest regeneration, although manipulation experiments provide contrasting findings. The extirpation of primates and birds cause the greatest declines in forest regeneration, emphasising their key role in maintaining carbon stores, and the need for national and international climate change and conservation strategies to protect forests from defaunation fronts as well as deforestation fronts.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.