Journal ArticleDOI
Evaluating Ecological Restoration Success: A Review of the Literature
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TLDR
This article conducted a literature review to determine trends in evaluations of restoration projects and identify key knowledge gaps that need to be addressed, and quantified the extent that key attributes of success, including ecological (vegetation structure, species diversity and abundance, and ecosystem functioning) and socioeconomic, were addressed by these papers along with trends in publication and restoration characteristics.Abstract:
Assessing the success of ecological restoration projects is critical to justify the use of restoration in natural resource management and to improve best practice. Although there are extensive discussions surrounding the characteristics that define and measure successful restoration, monitoring or evaluation of projects in practice is widely thought to have lagged behind. We conducted a literature review to determine trends in evaluations of restoration projects and identify key knowledge gaps that need to be addressed. We searched the Web of Knowledge plus two additional restoration journals not found in the database for empirical papers that assessed restoration projects post-implementation. We quantified the extent that key attributes of success, including ecological (vegetation structure, species diversity and abundance, and ecosystem functioning) and socioeconomic, were addressed by these papers along with trends in publication and restoration characteristics. Encouragingly, we found the number of empirical evaluations has grown substantially in recent years. The increased age of restoration projects and number of papers that assessed ecological functions since previous reviews of the literature is also a positive development. Research is still heavily skewed toward United States and Australia, however, and identifying an appropriate reference site needs further investigation. Of particular concern is the dearth of papers identified in the literature search that included any measure of socioeconomic attributes. Focusing future empirical research on quantifying ecosystem services and other socioeconomic outcomes is essential for understanding the full benefits and costs of ecological restoration and to support its use in natural resource management.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Predicting Optimal Sites for Ecosystem Restoration Using Stacked-Species Distribution Modeling
Amanda J. Zellmer,Jeremy T. Claisse,Jeremy T. Claisse,Chelsea M. Williams,Chelsea M. Williams,Stuart Schwab,Daniel J. Pondella +6 more
TL;DR: This article used stacked-species distribution models (s-SDMs) to identify candidate locations for installment of manmade reefs, a useful management tool for restoring structural habitat complexity and the associated biota in marine ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Past land-use and ecological resilience in a lowland Brazilian Atlantic Forest: implications for passive restoration
Jerônimo Boelsums Barreto Sansevero,Pablo V. Prieto,Andrea Sánchez-Tapia,João Marcelo Alvarenga Braga,Pablo José Francisco Pena Rodrigues +4 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the influence of past land-use on natural regeneration in two secondary forests that established on abandoned pastures with different land use histories (Abandoned+fire, 15 years since the last fire event and Abandoned-36 years ago).
Journal ArticleDOI
Forest Landscape Restoration: Progress in the Last Decade and Remaining Challenges
TL;DR: Forest landscape restoration (FLR) aims to restore forests in a landscape to meet both human needs and ecological priorities as mentioned in this paper, and has recently become popular and is being promoted as a solution to many of the environmental and social problems associated with land degradation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Fertilising semi-natural grasslands may cause long-term negative effects on both biodiversity and ecosystem stability
TL;DR: Duffková et al. as discussed by the authors showed that low-dose cattle slurry application (i.e. 0.240 kg N ha−1 year−1, 0.40 kg P ha− 1 year− 1, and 0.180 kg K ha − 1 year − 1 for 6 years, respectively) increases the herbage yield without affecting the diversity in a speciesrich grassland.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reframing conservation physiology to be more inclusive, integrative, relevant and forward-looking: reflections and a horizon scan.
Steven J. Cooke,Christine L. Madliger,Rebecca L. Cramp,John Beardall,Gary Burness,Steven L. Chown,Timothy Clark,Ben Dantzer,Erick de la Barrera,Nann A. Fangue,Craig E. Franklin,Andrea Fuller,Lucy A. Hawkes,Kevin R. Hultine,Kathleen E. Hunt,Oliver P. Love,Heath A. MacMillan,John W. Mandelman,Felix Christopher Mark,Lynn B. Martin,Amy E. M. Newman,Adrienne B. Nicotra,Sharon A. Robinson,Yan Ropert-Coudert,Jodie L. Rummer,Frank Seebacher,Anne E. Todgham +26 more
TL;DR: This work considers how conservation physiology has evolved with a focus on reframing the discipline to be more inclusive and integrative, and explores ways in which conservation physiology can be more relevant to pressing conservation issues of today, as well as more forward-looking to inform emerging issues and policies for tomorrow.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity
Bradley J. Cardinale,J. Emmett Duffy,Andrew Gonzalez,David U. Hooper,Charles Perrings,Patrick Venail,Anita Narwani,Georgina M. Mace,David Tilman,David A. Wardle,Ann P. Kinzig,Gretchen C. Daily,Michel Loreau,James B. Grace,Anne Larigauderie,Diane S. Srivastava,Shahid Naeem +16 more
TL;DR: It is argued that human actions are dismantling the Earth’s ecosystems, eliminating genes, species and biological traits at an alarming rate, and the question of how such loss of biological diversity will alter the functioning of ecosystems and their ability to provide society with the goods and services needed to prosper is asked.
Journal ArticleDOI
Indicators for Monitoring Biodiversity: A Hierarchical Approach
TL;DR: The three primay attributes of biodiversity recognized by Jerry Franklin are expanded into a nested hierarcby that incorporates ele- ments of each attribute at four levels of organization: re- gional landscape, community-ecosystem, population- species, andgenetic.
Journal ArticleDOI
Enhancement of biodiversity and ecosystem services by ecological restoration: a meta-analysis.
TL;DR: A meta-analysis of 89 restoration assessments in a wide range of ecosystem types across the globe indicates that ecological restoration increased provision of biodiversity and ecosystem services by 44 and 25%, respectively, however, values of both remained lower in restored versus intact reference ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Towards a Conceptual Framework for Restoration Ecology
Richard J. Hobbs,David A. Norton +1 more
TL;DR: This work stresses the importance of developing restoration methodologies that are applicable at the landscape scale, beyond nonquantitative generalities about size and connectivity, so that urgent large-scale restoration can be planned and implemented effectively.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ecological Theory and Community Restoration Ecology
TL;DR: Practical restoration efforts should rely heavily on what is known from theoretical and empirical research on how communities develop and are structured over time, and are identified specific areas that are in critical need of further research to advance the science of restoration ecology.