About this Research Topic

Background

Bison conservation has far-reaching implications and restoring them to their historical habitats provides numerous ecosystem services. Since the last Glacial Maximum (nearly 11,700 years ago), bison (Bison bison) were the most widespread and abundant megafauna in North America. Bison are considered one of the most iconic conservation tragedies, but also a major conservation success story—the tragedy being a megafauna species nearly driven to extinction, and the success being a century-long multisectoral effort towards recovery to reduce the threat of this species going extinct. Bison serve as ecosystem engineers, aiding in restoration of local biodiversity, rural economies, and cultural connections to the landscape. However, climate variability, diseases, and anecdotal strategies pose threats to sustainable restoration efforts. Currently, there are approximately 400,000 bison residing in North America and are uniquely managed by four sectors—private production, public wildlife agencies, nonprofit NGOs, and Tribal nations—collectively referred to as the Bison Management System (BMS). These sectors are highly interconnected economically through production markets and surplus animal translocations. By leveraging evidence-based management practices emphasized by each sector, we encourage a unified approach to sustainable bison management for One Health and ecological restoration in a changing world.

Understanding the basic biology of bison is critical to sustainable restoration of bison across all sectors of bison stewardship. Successful bison restoration requires consideration of a multitude of factors, underscoring the need for a One Health approach, which integrates human, animal, plant, and ecosystem health in a unified, sustainable strategy. In the United States, bison morbidity and mortality are nearly doubled that of beef cattle. The One Health framework provides scalable, actionable approaches for multisectoral partners to address welfare improvements and prevention of bison diseases, enhancing food production safety, improving livelihoods for bison managers, restoring and protecting biodiversity, and adapting to climate change. However, because bison are recognized as both a livestock and as a wildlife taxon, depending on who owns them, we can learn from unique manage practice consequences of each of the four sectors as harbingers of best-practices and incubators of adaptation innovation.

We seek original research and systematic reviews addressing the basic and applied biology of bison One Health, including, but not limited to: 1) bison grazing management and ecology, 2) bison health and disease management, 3) bison restoration for cultural and rural revitalization, 4) bison nutrition and behavior, 5) conservation [paleo]biology of bison in a changing world, 6) characteristics affecting bison meat and carcass quality, and 7) Climate Smart and climate adaptation strategies for sustainable bison management. We also seek perspective, policy briefs, and mini reviews on current bison management practices and strategies addressing climate adaptation and disease management on various operations and across all sectors.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• ... View all formats

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Climate Change, adaptation, ecological keystone species, ecoagriculture, conservation, Regenerative Agriculture

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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