At the Foot of a Melting Glacier in Peru, Llamas Helped Revitalize the Land

Llamas are camelids, the family of animals that also includes Bactrian and Dromedary camels, vicunas, alpacas and guanacos. These animals evolved in North America. Llamas and their ancestors were present in North America for 40 million years. 

 

Together with 80 percent of existing North American genera, llamas and their cousins disappeared about 10,000 years ago shortly after early human hunters arrived from Eurasia via the Bering Sea land bridge. However, unlike most other species the North American llama die out was only regional since llamas and three related species survived in South America. As discussed in the article below, South American llamas have been domesticated for around 6,500 years and these llamas have benefited South American habitat restorations.

 

Wild llamas do very well in the United States. This is not surprising since they and their ancestors co-evolved and were interdependent with North American plants and animals for millions of years.

 

Invasive species “biologists” maintain that llamas are “invasive exotics” which harm habitat and wildlife through “competition.” These claims that llamas harm American wildlife are dubious considering that this large group of animals were continuously present in North America for 40 million years, alongside a vastly more numerous and diverse menagerie of wildlife than what remains today.

 

So, here are a few questions for the invasive species proponents:

•    If humans are natives after 12-thousand years, why aren’t llamas natives after 40-million years?

•    Why would human-caused regional die outs in North America make llamas non-natives?

•    Why would llama reintroductions to a region where they existed for millions of years be an invasion of an “exotic” species?

•    Why is it good to restore turkey, deer, elk, bison, bighorn, prairie dogs, Whooping Cranes, grizzlies, cougar, wolves, wolverines, salmon, trout and so many other species of animals, birds, fish, trees, and plants to areas where human impact caused regional disappearances, but not llamas?

•    What are the distinctions? What science justifies these distinctions?

 

Llamas could play an important part in restoring American biodiversity, but first we must escape the intellectual straitjacket of the historic and ecological illiteracy of invasive species biology.

 

NOTE: this article was originally published to ScienceNews.org on October 27, 2023. It was written by Saima S. Iqbal.

Within three years, the soil grew richer and supported more plants

When glaciers melt, they leave behind barren landscapes that can take decades to support plants and animals. But a new study found that within just three years, such exposed land was revitalized by llamas, whose activity nourished the soil and fostered plant growth.

By the foot of Peru’s shrinking Uruashraju glacier, researchers partnered with local farmers to capture and herd llamas on four designated plots. For three days a month from 2019 to 2022, the llamas (Llama glama) grazed the plots, fertilizing them with dung and dispersing viable seeds from droppings and fur.

Such a revival of the ancestral Andean practice of camelid herding could potentially cushion the crops, animals and livelihoods of local communities from the impacts of climate change, says Zimmer, of the University of Texas at Austin.

As is the case worldwide, glaciers are disappearing in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountains at an unprecedented rate. And as the ice shrinks, nearby ecosystems wither: They lose access to summertime supplies of freshwater and sometimes encounter harmful acidic minerals in rocks once covered by the glaciers.

Llamas may help counter some of these effects. Their transformation of the land, as seen in the new study, could reduce rock weathering and help the soil hold onto more moisture, thus limiting the acidic runoff that can poison farmers’ crops. Such contamination is one reason local farmers partnered with the researchers. The animals’ behavior could one day even generate new pasturelands as soil quality improves.

The idea that herbivore grazing may positively impact a landscape is not new. Nor is rewilding, the push to reintroduce key species to their native ecosystems, unique to the Cordillera Blanca mountains. In Finland, for example, the Indigenous Sami are working to reinstall reindeer in deforested taiga land, potentially restoring it. And a group in Spain hopes one day to lift the wild bovine known as the auroch out of extinction, putting it to use in grazing.

But the size and speed of the changes the llamas helped bring about surprised the researchers. From 2021 to 2022, the average amount of plant cover in the llama plots grew from about 9 percent to nearly 14 percent — faster than it did in four control plots. Four new types of plant species also moved into the experimental plots over the course of the study.

The research underscores the valuable roles animals play in shaping landscapes, says ecologist Kelsey Reider of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., who was not involved with the new research. Sprinkling nutrients such as phosphorus over the soil can produce similar effects on plant growth, she says, but “the animals themselves are doing a lot.”

For one, animal poo is special: It holds onto both moisture and microbes. For another, in grazing and trampling on plants, the llamas weed out dominant plants, making space for new species.

For the new study, Zimmer and colleagues primarily chose to work with llamas rather than another native camelid, the vicuña, because llamas are easier to herd and make gentler tramplers. And the farmers that the researchers collaborated with were also particularly invested in restoring llama communities, features of Incan religious rituals. Centuries of Spanish conquest replaced llamas and other wild camelids with foreign livestock that uprooted native plants. Bringing llamas back, the farmers think, might slow or reverse the physical and cultural loss.

Zimmer would like to continue the study for at least a decade to track the full effects of the intervention. While the llamas might help a bevy of plants survive in the region, she says, it remains unclear which will stick around, and whether those will ultimately help or harm the ecosystem.

She also notes that the icy mountaintops also hold religious significance for some communities, meaning that as the ice melts away, some feel as though they are “losing their cultural identities.” By 2100, scientists project that the Cordillera Blanca will lose the last of its glaciers as the Earth warms. If further research with llamas bears positive results, Zimmer hopes local government actors might invest in llama herding as a potential adaptation strategy. It can’t bring back the glaciers. But, she says, it may return a sense of agency to local communities.

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