Sergey A. Zimov has an article in the 6 May 2005 Science about his efforts to create a Pleistocene Park where recreated Pleistocene grazing will flip from a moss dominated system to grassland. Its a great example of a large scale attempt to flip a system from one alternative state to another.

Zimov writes:

This view means that the present Holocene climate of northern Siberia, particularly near the present tree line, is likely just now to be optimal for the mammoth ecosystem. If we accept the argument that the pasture landscapes were destroyed because herbivore populations were decimated by human hunting, then it stands to reason that those landscapes can be reconstituted by the judicious return of appropriate herbivore communities.

In northern Siberia, mainly in the Republic of Yakutia, plains that once were covered by tens of meters of mammoth steppe soils now occupy a million square kilometers. The climate of the territory is near optimal for northern grassland ecosystems. Thus, in principle, the ancient mammoth ecosystem could be restored there.

In Yakutia, we are trying to do just that. The government has adopted a program to restore the republic’s former biodiversity. One thrust of this effort has been through the nonprofit organization of Pleistocene Park–of which I am a founding member–on 160 km2 of Kolyma lowland. One-third of the territory is meadow, one-third is forest, and one-third is willow shrubland. Today, many of the animals of the mammoth ecosystem and grasses remain in northern Yakutia.

Reindeer, moose, Yakutian horses, recently reintroduced musk oxen, hares, marmots, and ground squirrels forage for vegetation, and predators, including wolves, bears, lynxes, wolverines, foxes, polar foxes, and sables, prey on the herbivores. However, strong hunting pressure has kept the overall number of animals low. Therefore, their influence on vegetation is small. The first step for Pleistocene Park, which we are just now initiating, is to gather the surviving megafauna of the mammoth ecosystem (initially without predators) within the part of the parkland that is rich in grassland. The second step will be to increase the herbivore density sufficiently to influence the vegetation and soil. As animal densities increase, the fenced boundary will be expanded.

The most important phase of the program will be the reintroduction of bison from Canada and subsequently, when the herbivores are sufficiently abundant, the acclimatization of Siberian tigers. In many regions of the Amur River basin, where this formidable predator survives, January temperature is as low as -25º to -30ºC. The tigers’ survival there is limited more by poaching and herbivore density than by climate. Scientifically, Pleistocene Park is important because it directly tests the role of large herbivores in creating and maintaining grassland ecosystems, something that can only be surmised but not proven from the paleorecord.

Science 282, 31-34 (1998)] also had a news story by R. Stone about the start of Zimov’s ambitious Pleistocene Park project: A Bold Plan to Re-Create a Long-Lost Siberian Ecosystem