Ecologists have started to recognise the competition between younger and older generations within the same species, with some startling conclusions about nature’s requirement for mortality

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ENVIRONMENT18 October 2022

ByLaura Spinney

TO THE east of Amsterdam lies a tract of reclaimed marshland, the site of an epic rewilding project called the Oostvaardersplassen. It is sometimes nicknamed the Dutch Serengeti because of the profusion of large herbivores that graze there. But during the bitterly cold winter of 2017-18, deeply shocking images began to emerge. Thousands of deer, cattle and horses lay dead or dying of starvation. Desperate onlookers threw bales of hay over fences in an effort to help – clearly something had gone badly wrong.

Theoretical ecologist André de Roos was neither shocked nor surprised. His research hadpredicted this disaster…