Restoration Ecology: Interventionist Approaches for Restoring and Maintaining Ecosystem Function in the Face of Rapid Environmental Change

Abstract

Restoration ecology provides the conceptual and practical frameworks to guide management interventions aimed at repairing environmental damage. Restoration activities range from local to regional and from volunteer efforts to large-scale multiagency activities. Interventions vary from a “do nothing” approach to a variety of abiotic and biotic interventions aimed at speeding up or altering the course of ecosystem recovery. Revised understanding of ecosystem dynamics, the place of humans in historic ecosystems, and changed environmental settings owing to rapid environmental change all impact on decisions concerning which interventions are appropriate. Key issues relating to ecosystem restoration in a rapidly changing world include understanding how potentially synergistic global change drivers interact to alter the dynamics and restoration of ecosystems and how novel ecosystems without a historic analogue should be managed.