Rewilding the Atlantic Forest: Restoring the fauna and ecological interactions of a protected area

Refaunation emerges as a promising, cost-effective strategy to restore ecological processes in defaunated Neotropical forests. A collaborative reintroduction network successfully reintroduced two key seed dispersers—the red-humped agouti and the brown howler monkey—into Tijuca National Park (TNP), Rio de Janeiro, between 2010 and 2017. Monitoring revealed that these species interacted with multiple plant species, including large-seeded ones, while 25 dung beetle species were found interacting with howler feces. The absence of medium to large frugivores in TNP before the reintroduction suggests a disproportionate positive effect on forest regeneration. Despite challenges such as environmental licensing delays and scarcity of source populations, this study demonstrates that targeted refaunation can effectively restore ecological interactions and support biodiversity recovery.

Fernandez, F. A. S., Rheingantz, M. L., Genes, L., Kenup, C. F., Galliez, M., Cezimbra, T., Cid, B., Macedo, L., Araujo, B. B. A., Moraes, B. S., Monjeau, A., & Pires, A. S. (2017). Rewilding the Atlantic Forest: Restoring the fauna and ecological interactions of a protected area. Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation, 15(4), 308–314. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecon.2017.09.004