Gerald J. Niemi

TL;DR: The use of ecological indicators has been widely accepted by scientists, environmental managers, and the general public as mentioned in this paper, and they have been used to assess the condition of the environment, as early warning signals of ecological problems, and as barometers for trends in ecological resources.

TL;DR: All systems in these studies seem to be resilient to most disturbances with most recovery times being less than three years, with exceptions included when (1) the disturbance resulted in physical alteration of the existing habitat, (2) residual pollutants remained in the system, or (3) the system was isolated and recolonization was suppressed.

TL;DR: The most commonly cited reasons for short recovery times were: (1) life history characteristics that allowed rapid recolonization and repopulation of the affected areas, (2) the availability and accessibility of unaffected up-stream and downstream areas and internal refugia to serve as sources of organisms for reopulation, (3) the high flushing rates of lotic systems that allowed them to quickly dilute or replace polluted waters, and (4) the fact that lotic system are naturally subjected to a variety of disturbances.

TL;DR: In this paper, a method was developed to evaluate the cumulative effect of wetland mosaics in the landscape on stream water quality and quantity in the nine-county region surrounding Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota.

TL;DR: Recovery was enhanced by the presence of refugia but was delayed by barriers to migration, especially when source populations for recolonization were relatively distant, and there was little evidence for the influence of biotic interactions on recovery rates.