Reintroductions backfire by destabilising food webs and triggering further extinction cascades

Abstract

Conservation interventions like reintroduction are considered vital to bending the curve of biodiversity loss1, with the potential for multiplicative benefits that not only reduce extinction pressure on the reintroduced species, but also restore wider community dynamics and ecosystem functions2,3. Its growing popularity reflects these perceived benefits4. Reintroduction success is usually judged only by the survival of the released species4, but there is no guarantee that the wider community will recover. Using simulated food webs, we show that reintroductions can frequently have unintended negative consequences: triggering extinction cascades, reducing biomass, and destabilising communities. These perverse impacts are unlikely to be detected as reintroduction success is often measured solely by the ability for reintroduced species to survive - which our models suggest is likely - introducing a risk that conservation action superficially appears successful but is actually further depleting our ecosystems.