Harnessing ecological theory to enhance ecosystem restoration.

Ecosystem restoration can increase the health and resilience of nature and humanity. As a result, the international community is championing habitat restoration as a primary solution to address the dual climate and biodiversity crises. Yet most ecosystem restoration efforts to date have underperformed, failed, or been burdened by high costs that prevent upscaling.

Species eradication for ecosystem restoration.

Many of the world's ecosystems are under unprecedented stress as human pressures have escalated to be a dominant driver of ecosystem composition and condition. Direct impacts such as agriculture, extraction, and development are impacting vast swathes of land and ocean, while the effects of human-caused climate change are felt even in the most remote parts of marine and terrestrial wildernesses. These impacts are resulting in changes ranging from ecosystem collapse or replacement to novel mixes of species due to temperature-driven range shifts.

Herbivory limits success of vegetation restoration globally.

Restoring vegetation in degraded ecosystems is an increasingly common practice for promoting biodiversity and ecological function, but successful implementation is hampered by an incomplete understanding of the processes that limit restoration success. By synthesizing terrestrial and aquatic studies globally (2594 experimental tests from 610 articles), we reveal substantial herbivore control of vegetation under restoration. Herbivores at restoration sites reduced vegetation abundance more strongly (by 89%, on average) than those at relatively undegraded sites and suppressed, rather than fostered, plant diversity.

Functional consequences of animal community changes in managed grasslands: An application of the CAFE approach.

In the midst of an ongoing biodiversity crisis, much research has focused on species losses and their impacts on ecosystem functioning. The functional consequences (ecosystem response) of shifts in communities are shaped not only by changes in species richness, but also by compositional shifts that result from species losses and gains. Species differ in their contribution to ecosystem functioning, so species identity underlies the consequences of species losses and gains on ecosystem functions.

An invasive appetite: Combining molecular and stable isotope analyses to reveal the diet of introduced house mice (Mus musculus) on a small, subtropical island.

House mice (Mus musculus) pose a conservation threat on islands, where they adversely affect native species' distributions, densities, and persistence. On Sand Island of Kuaihelani, mice recently began to depredate nesting adult mōlī (Laysan Albatross, Phoebastria immutabilis). Efforts are underway to eradicate mice from Sand Island, but knowledge of mouse diet is needed to predict ecosystem response and recovery following mouse removal.

Hold big business to task on ecosystem restoration.

Corporate reporting must embrace holistic, scientific principles.

Tracking the global application of conservation translocation and social attraction to reverse seabird declines.

The global loss of biodiversity has inspired actions to restore nature across the planet. Translocation and social attraction actions deliberately move or lure a target species to a restoration site to reintroduce or augment populations and enhance biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. Given limited conservation funding and rapidly accelerating extinction trajectories, tracking progress of these interventions can inform best practices and advance management outcomes.

The effect of seabird presence and seasonality on ground-active spider communities across temperate islands.

Seabirds influence island ecosystems through nutrient additions and physical disturbance. These influences can have opposing effects on an island's invertebrate predator populations. Spiders (order: Araneae) are an important predator in many terrestrial island ecosystems, yet little is known about how seabird presence influences spider communities at the intraisland scale, or how they respond to seasonality in seabird colony attendance.

Reintroduced megaherbivores indirectly shape small-mammal responses to moonlight.

Moonlight structures activity patterns of many nocturnal species. Bright moonlight often limits the activity of nocturnal prey, but dense vegetation weakens this effect. Using 8 years of live-trapping data, we asked whether reintroduced megaherbivores (Bison bison) indirectly altered moonlight avoidance by small mammals in tallgrass prairies.

Arthropod Predation of Vertebrates Structures Trophic Dynamics in Island Ecosystems.

AbstractOn isolated islands, large arthropods can play an important functional role in ecosystem dynamics. On the Norfolk Islands group, South Pacific, we monitored the diet and foraging activity of an endemic chilopod, the Phillip Island centipede (), and used a stable isotope mixing model to estimate dietary proportions. Phillip Island centipede diet is represented by vertebrate animals (48%) and invertebrates (52%), with 30.

Disturbance-Induced Trophic Niche Shifts In Ground Beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) In Restored Grasslands.

Ecosystem restoration is a critical component of land management, countering the loss of native biodiversity. Restoration efforts are enhanced by reintroducing naturally occurring ecosystem processes, including disturbances that may impact species characteristics such as niche position or niche size. In grasslands, grazing and fire affect plant diversity and habitat complexity, which potentially influence insect dietary behaviors and thus their contributions to functions like seed and arthropod predation.

Effects of management outweigh effects of plant diversity on restored animal communities in tallgrass prairies.

A primary goal of ecological restoration is to increase biodiversity in degraded ecosystems. However, the success of restoration ecology is often assessed by measuring the response of a single functional group or trophic level to restoration, without considering how restoration affects multitrophic interactions that shape biodiversity. An ecosystem-wide approach to restoration is therefore necessary to understand whether animal responses to restoration, such as changes in biodiversity, are facilitated by changes in plant communities (plant-driven effects) or disturbance and succession resulting from restoration activities (management-driven effects).

Reintroduced grazers and prescribed fire effects on beetle assemblage structure and function in restored grasslands.

Ecological restoration seeks to reestablish functioning ecosystems, but planning and evaluation often focus on taxonomic community structure and neglect consumers and their functional roles. The functional trait composition of insect assemblages, which make up the majority of animal diversity in many systems, can reveal how they are affected by restoration management and the consequences for ecosystem function. We sampled ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages in restored tallgrass prairies varying in management with prescribed fire and reintroduced American bison (Bison bison) to describe their taxonomic and functional trait structure.

Global hotspots for coastal ecosystem-based adaptation.

Helping the world's coastal communities adapt to climate change impacts requires evaluating the vulnerability of coastal communities and assessing adaptation options. This includes understanding the potential for 'natural' infrastructure (ecosystems and the biodiversity that underpins them) to reduce communities' vulnerability, alongside more traditional 'hard' infrastructure approaches. Here we present a spatially explicit global evaluation of the vulnerability of coastal-dwelling human populations to key climate change exposures and explore the potential for coastal ecosystems to help people adapt to climate change (ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA)).

The geography of biodiversity change in marine and terrestrial assemblages.

Human activities are fundamentally altering biodiversity. Projections of declines at the global scale are contrasted by highly variable trends at local scales, suggesting that biodiversity change may be spatially structured. Here, we examined spatial variation in species richness and composition change using more than 50,000 biodiversity time series from 239 studies and found clear geographic variation in biodiversity change.

Restoration and repair of Earth's damaged ecosystems.

Given that few ecosystems on the Earth have been unaffected by humans, restoring them holds great promise for stemming the biodiversity crisis and ensuring ecosystem services are provided to humanity. Nonetheless, few studies have documented the recovery of ecosystems globally or the rates at which ecosystems recover. Even fewer have addressed the added benefit of actively restoring ecosystems versus allowing them to recover without human intervention following the cessation of a disturbance.

A global review of past land use, climate, and active vs. passive restoration effects on forest recovery.

Global forest restoration targets have been set, yet policy makers and land managers lack guiding principles on how to invest limited resources to achieve them. We conducted a meta-analysis of 166 studies in naturally regenerating and actively restored forests worldwide to answer: (1) To what extent do floral and faunal abundance and diversity and biogeochemical functions recover? (2) Does recovery vary as a function of past land use, time since restoration, forest region, or precipitation? (3) Does active restoration result in more complete or faster recovery than passive restoration? Overall, forests showed a high level of recovery, but the time to recovery depended on the metric type measured, past land use, and region. Abundance recovered quickly and completely, whereas diversity recovered slower in tropical than in temperate forests.

Anthropogenic ecosystem disturbance and the recovery debt.

Ecosystem recovery from anthropogenic disturbances, either without human intervention or assisted by ecological restoration, is increasingly occurring worldwide. As ecosystems progress through recovery, it is important to estimate any resulting deficit in biodiversity and functions. Here we use data from 3,035 sampling plots worldwide, to quantify the interim reduction of biodiversity and functions occurring during the recovery process (that is, the 'recovery debt').

Invasive mammal eradication on islands results in substantial conservation gains.

More than US$21 billion is spent annually on biodiversity conservation. Despite their importance for preventing or slowing extinctions and preserving biodiversity, conservation interventions are rarely assessed systematically for their global impact. Islands house a disproportionately higher amount of biodiversity compared with mainlands, much of which is highly threatened with extinction.

Seabird islands take mere decades to recover following rat eradication.

Islands house a majority of the world's biodiversity and are thus critical for biodiversity conservation. Seabird nesting colonies provide nutrients that are integral to maintain island biodiversity and ecosystem function. Invasive rats destroy seabird colonies and thus the island ecosystems that depend on seabird-derived nutrients.

Prognosis for ecosystem recovery following rodent eradication and seabird restoration in an island archipelago.

Invasive species are widespread and can have devastating effects on biota, especially insular biota. Invasive species eradications are increasingly employed to promote island recovery to preinvasion states. However, it remains unclear if additional restoration actions may be required on islands that were once heavily reliant on seabird guano for ecosystem functions.