Conceptual and methodological issues in estimating the success of ecological restoration

Ecological restoration (ER) of terrestrial ecosystems has become widespread in past decades. However, assessing its success is complex mainly due to the diversity of objectives pursued, actions undertaken but also statistical methods for treating data. We demonstrate here that, due to the heterogene...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Marchand, Lilian, Castagneyrol, Bastien, Jiménez, Juan José, Rey Benayas, José María, Benot, Marie-Lise, Martínez Ruiz, Carolina, Alday, Josu G., Jaunatre, Renaud, Dutoit, Thierry, Buisson, Elise, Mench, Michel, Alard, Didier, Corcket, Emmanuel, Comín, F. A. (Francisco A.)
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universitat de Lleida (UdL)
Repositorio:Repositori Obert UdL
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.udl.cat:10459.1/70722
Acceso en línea:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.107362
http://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/70722
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Achieved restoration index
Activerestoration
Meta-analysis
Passive restoration
Remaining recovery
Descripción
Sumario:Ecological restoration (ER) of terrestrial ecosystems has become widespread in past decades. However, assessing its success is complex mainly due to the diversity of objectives pursued, actions undertaken but also statistical methods for treating data. We demonstrate here that, due to the heterogeneity of collected data, the success of restoration actions can be overestimated in meta-analyses. We advocate analyzing distinctly two types of actions in ER, those aiming at increasing an ecosystem attribute (e.g. species richness of a native plant species, ER+), and those aiming at decreasing it (e.g. invasive species cover, ER-). We also suggest that only one index for assessing the success of a restoration action is not enough. We propose here to complete RR (Remaining Recovery) by a novel index informing on ‘what has been restored by comparison to what should have been recovered’: the ‘Achieved Restoration’ index (AR).