Abstract
BackgroundRestoration aims at reversing the trend of habitat degradation, the major threat to biodiversity. In Finland, more than half of the original peatland area has been drained, and during recent years, restoration of some of the drained peatlands has been accomplished. Short-term effects of the restoration on peatland hydrology, chemistry and vegetation are promising but little is known about how other species groups apart from vascular plants and bryophytes respond to restoration efforts.ResultsHere, we studied how abundance and species richness of Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) respond to restoration. We sampled larvae in three sites (restored, drained, pristine) on each of 12 different study areas. We sampled Odonata larvae before restoration (n = 12), during the first (n = 10) and the third (n = 7) year after restoration and used generalized linear mixed models to analyze the effect of restoration. Drained sites had lower abundance and species richness than pristine sites. During the third year after restoration both abundance and species richness had risen in restored sites.ConclusionsOur results show that Odonata suffer from drainage, but seem to benefit from peatland restoration and are able to colonize newly formed water pools already within three years after restoration.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12898-015-0042-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Restoration aims at reversing the trend of habitat degradation, the major threat to biodiversity
The number of individuals found from a site ranged from zero to 52, and species richness from zero to five
The effect was due to three of the seven sites visited with relatively high species richness (4–5 species) whilst no individuals was found from the rest of the sites
Summary
Restoration aims at reversing the trend of habitat degradation, the major threat to biodiversity. Degradation of natural habitats has become a major threat to biodiversity, questioning the survival of a vast number of species [1,2,3]. In addition to impoverishment of environment, the loss of species may compromise our own well-being as degradation of habitats may hamper ecosystem function [4], resulting even in ecosystem collapse [5]. In order to halt the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services international targets have been set for slowing down the rate of degradation and for restoring already degraded ecosystems [6]. Ecological restoration aims at reversing the degradation by partial or complete restoration of the original structure and function of the ecosystem [7].
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