The Argentine Puna is an example of rewilding of the herbivore community, with wild camelids recovering (mainly vicuñas, Vicugna vicugna and guanacos Lama guanicoe) while livestock decreases. Peatlands are the most diverse ecosystem in the region and are key resources for herbivores. Here, we tested the hypothesis that herbivore rewilding is associated with higher biodiversity of three biological groups: plants, aquatic macroinvertebrates, and birds. We sampled 50 peatlands distributed in the Argentine Puna, along an elevation range from 3200 to 4700 m asl. Using Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), we developed a “wilderness index” that combines different proxies of pastoral use (herbivore feces, “puestos”, accessibility to human settlements, field counts of herbivores). In general, the diversity of the different groups was negatively correlated with elevation and positively correlated with peatland area, thus we used the residuals of a model to control for these two variables and test for the correlation between biodiversity patterns (Shannon index and richness) and peatland wilderness index. Contrary to our expectations, diversity of plant and macroinvertebrate communities’ showed slightly negative statistically significant correlations with wilderness, while birds showed no statistical association. Potential explanations for this pattern include (1) diversity of microhabitats generated by a more diverse herbivore's community associated with livestock (e.g., different trampling, browsing, and movement patterns, effects on water quality through feces), (2) management of hydrological regimes and stocking rates to provide stability, (3) herbivory dynamics that promote the dominance of certain plants. Overall, the results reject the hypothesis that herbivore rewilding automatically results in biodiversity gains, and emphasize the importance of understanding the socio-ecological mechanisms by which human land use (including exotic livestock) contributes to the biodiversity maintenance in these key ecosystems.

阿根廷普纳是食草动物群落野化的一个例子，野生骆驼科动物正在恢复（主要是骆驼、Vicugna vicugna和 guanacos Lama guanicoe ），而牲畜则在减少。泥炭地是该地区最多样化的生态系统，是食草动物的重要资源。在这里，我们测试了食草动物野化与三个生物群的更高生物多样性相关的假设：植物、水生大型无脊椎动物, 和鸟类。我们对分布在阿根廷普纳的 50 个泥炭地进行了采样，海拔范围从 3200 到 4700 m asl。使用非度量多维尺度 (NMDS)，我们开发了一个“荒野指数”，它结合了不同的牧区使用指标（食草动物粪便、“puestos”、人类住区的可及性、食草动物的田间计数）。一般来说，不同群体的多样性与海拔负相关，与泥炭地面积正相关，因此我们使用模型的残差来控制这两个变量，并检验生物多样性模式（香农指数和丰富度）与泥炭地面积之间的相关性。泥炭地荒野指数。与我们的预期相反，植物和大型无脊椎动物群落的多样性与荒野在统计上呈显着负相关，而鸟类没有显示出统计关联。对这种模式的潜在解释包括 (1) 与牲畜相关的更多样化的食草动物群落产生的微生境多样性（例如，不同的践踏、浏览和移动模式，通过粪便对水质的影响），(2) 管理水文状况和放养率提供稳定性，（3）食草动力学促进某些植物的优势。总体而言，结果拒绝了食草动物野化自动导致生物多样性增加的假设，并强调了了解人类土地利用（包括外来牲畜）有助于这些关键生态系统中生物多样性维护的社会生态机制的重要性。