Ecological Restoration Flashcards
What are the 3 main components of an ecosystem?
- Composition - species present
- Structure - three dimensional configuration of land (living/dead plants, soil, landscape traits)
- Processes and functions (e.g nutrient cycling)
What is the difference between ecological restoration and restoration ecology?
Ecological restoration is the practice of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem while restoration ecology is the study of restoration methods that informs ER
What are 4 types of ecological rehabilitation?
Habitat enhancement
Remediation
Mitigation
Reclamation
What is habitat enhancement?
Ecological improvement of a site that may be different from historical conditions (also termed replacement)
What is remediation?
Specific to removal, reduction, or neutralization of toxic or non-native substances
What is mitigation?
The improvement of a site because of degradation to another site in compliance with a permit etc.
What is reclamation?
The improvement of a site for reasons outside ecological value (eg. safety or aesthetics)
Two different definitions of ER
- The return of an ecosystem to historical conditions
2. The improvement of a site to any level (ie. rehabilitation)
What are the 4 ecosystem services?
Provisioning
Regulating
Supporting
Cultural
What are provisioning services?
The goods that we acquire from ecosystems such as food or wood products
What are regulating services?
The benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes
What are supporting services?
The services an ecosystem provides for habitat such as soil formation and photosynthesis)
What are cultural services?
The use of an ecosystem for recreation or just for its intrinsic or aesthetic value
What is the difference between a stressor and an impact?
A stressor is the factor responsible for ecosystem degradation (causal factors like population and consumption, and indirect drivers like fishing/hunting and industry)
And an impact is how the ecosystem is degraded (direct pressures like habitat loss or contamination)
What things are impacted by stressors? (3 points)
Biodiversity
Ecosystem services
Biotic relationships (predator/prey, competition, mutualism etc.)
Types of biodiversity impacted by stressors (3 points)
Genetic diversity
Species diversity
Ecosystem diversity
What are the 2 main goals of ecological restoration?
Restoring native species
Restoring ecosystem services
Why does ER focus on aquatic ecosystems? (4 points)
They have been extensively degraded
They are valuable in supporting native species diversity and ecosystem services
They are an indicator of bigger issues
They respond quickly to restoration efforts because they are dynamic
Why is ER an inexact science? (2 points)
We lack clear goals
We lack clear and reliable restoration methods
Why do restorationists lack clear goals? (3 points)
Lack of suitable baseline data (ie. pre-impact site description)
Lack of comparable reference sites (assuming reference is in original state)
Ecosystems are naturally variable so both baseline data and reference sites may not even be applicable
Why do restorationists lack clear and reliable methods? (2 points)
ER is a young field
Management is just beginning to be informed by ecological sciences
What are the 8 key traits of properly function ecosystems?
Efficiency - capturing and storing energy
Redundancy - higher richness within or between species
Sustainability - ability of species to reproduce
Resiliency - depends on the efficiency, redundancy, and sustainability of an ecosystem. Ability for ecosystem to return to previous state after a disturbance
Adaptability - genetic and species diversity allow ecosystems to adapt to changing conditions
Organization - species/communities are organized in their historical way (including genetically resulting from evolution)
Continuous - gradual transitions are seen between ecosystems (ecotones)
Thresholds in space and time - each species and process requires a minimum amount of space and time to work
How do we assess the condition of an ecosystem?
We use indicators because we cannot directly measure traits of an ecosystem (can’t measure the sickness directly so we have to measure the symptoms)
What are the 6 key indicators of ecosystem health?
Diversity of native species - most strongly correlated factor to ecosystem health
Presence of over-abundant native species, non-native species and invasives (eg. Didimo algae)
Water quality - high levels of nutrients might indicate a “leaky” watershed that isn’t conserving soil and nutrients well
Hydrologic processes - can look at fluctuations over time (eg. Flashiness)
Soil characteristics - depth of topsoil, OM, mineral components, porosity
Toxicants - heavy metals, organic pollutants (POPs)
Why is native species diversity most commonly used to assess ecosystem “health”? (4 points)
It is responsible for many traits and processes in an ecosystem including:
- efficiency
- resiliency
- adaptability
- nutrient cycling etc.
Why do we use many indicators to assess ecosystem functioning?
Because ecosystems are complex we must use multiple indicators in both site assessment and monitoring
What do we use these indicators for? (2 points)
We use them to assess the degradation of a site
Or
We use them to compare our monitoring data with reference data to see if our restoration attempts were successful
What types of references do we use to compare our indicator values? (3 points)
Historical data on restoration site (can use oral history as well for historical site conditions)
Reference sites (unimpacted) - if not available, can use reference indicators
Control sites (impacted by not restored)
What is a reference indicator?
If reference sites are unavailable, restorationists can use indicator values from literature to assess degradation or success of plan
What are some examples of impacts to ecosystems? (5 points)
Habitat loss Species decline Invasive species Changes to disturbance regimes Losses to keystone species (biotic relations)
Why does ER focus on native species composition diversity? (2 points)
It is most strongly correlated to ecosystem health because it determines many ecosystem traits (resiliency etc.)
It is relatively easy to measure
3 characteristics of a good ER framework
Systematic
Rigorous
Iterative
In what circumstances might ER not be a good alternative? (2 points)
When natural processes are improving conditions on their own through succession etc.
When the costs outweigh the gains- success is too unlikely or expensive given constraints (in this case it’s better to put effort into more feasible project)
How is ER an iterative process?
It involves adaptive management whereby monitoring is needed to ensure success and may lead to learning new details and thus creating new objectives or changing original treatments/objectives
