Article Dans Une Revue Nature Communications Année : 2025

Wild and domesticated animal abundance is associated with greater late-Holocene alpine plant diversity

Sandra Garcés-Pastor
Peter D Heintzman
Scarlett Zetter
Youri Lammers
Nigel G Yoccoz
Jean-Paul Theurillat
Christoph Schwörer
  • Fonction : Auteur
Andreas Tribsch
  • Fonction : Auteur
Kevin Walsh
Owen S Wangensteen
Oliver Heiri
Eric Coissac
Sébastien Lavergne
Lieveke van Vugt
  • Fonction : Auteur
Fabian Rey
  • Fonction : Auteur
Gentile Francesco Ficetola
Dirk N Karger
Loïc Pellissier
Robert Schabetsberger
  • Fonction : Auteur
Jean Nicolas Haas
  • Fonction : Auteur
Michael Strasser
Karin A Koinig
Tomasz Goslar
Sönke Szidat
Antony G Brown
  • Fonction : Auteur
Willy Tinner
  • Fonction : Auteur
Inger Greve Alsos

Résumé

In the face of human land use and climate dynamics, it is essential to know the key drivers of plant species diversity in montane regions. However, the relative roles of climate and ungulates in alpine ecosystem change is an open question. Neither observational data nor traditional palaeoecological data have the power to resolve this issue over decadal to centennial timescales, but sedimentary ancient DNA ( sed aDNA) does. Here we record 603 plant taxa, as well as 5 wild, and 6 domesticated mammals from 14 lake sediment records over the last 14,000 years in the European Alps. Sheep were the first domesticated animals detected (at 5.8 ka), with cattle appearing at the early Bronze Age (4.2 ka) and goats arriving later (3.5 ka). While sheep had an impact similar to wild ungulates, cattle have been associated with increased plant diversity over the last 2 ka by promoting the diversity of forbs and graminoids. Modelling of the sed aDNA data revealed a significantly larger effect of cattle and wild ungulates than temperature on plant diversity. Our findings highlight the significant alteration of alpine vegetation and the entire ecosystem in the Alps by wild and domesticated herbivores. This study has immediate implications for the maintenance and management of high plant species diversity in the face of ongoing anthropogenic changes in the land use of montane regions.

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hal-05400812 , version 1 (05-12-2025)

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Sandra Garcés-Pastor, Peter D Heintzman, Scarlett Zetter, Youri Lammers, Nigel G Yoccoz, et al.. Wild and domesticated animal abundance is associated with greater late-Holocene alpine plant diversity. Nature Communications, 2025, 16 (1), pp.3924. ⟨10.1038/s41467-025-59028-2⟩. ⟨hal-05400812⟩
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