1. Restoration Ecology

2. Restoration Ecology
Chrissy Field, SF

3. Restoration Ecology
Due to the severe impact humans have already inflicted on the landscape and the expensive cost of real estate, restoring a landscape may be more feasible than other options
This is a relatively new field and many advances have been made
However, we rarely restore something to its former glory and functionality

4. Restoration Ecology
May be able to trace restoration back to Aldo Leopold in the 1930’s at the UW arboretum (120 ha forest)
RE draws upon many disciplines and subdisciplines of the natural sciences including landscape ecology, hydrology, geomorphology, soil science, geochemistry, animal behavior, pop biology, theoretical biology, invasion ecology and evolutionary ecol

5. Restoration Ecology
Specifically, RE is “the process of intentionally altering a site to establish a defined, indigenous, historic ecosystem”
The goal is to emulate the structure, function, diversity and dynamics of the specific ecosystem
Or…moving a degraded system back towards one of greater structural and functional diversity

6. Restoration Ecology It is an iterative process:
1) examines preexisting, historic, and current reference conditions prior to designing the plan
2) developing a restoration plan
3) obtain permits, do the work
4) implementing plan, although complex (e.g. hydrology, soil, plant & animal responses)
5) monitoring the site

7. Restoration Ecology

8. Restoration Ecology
RE may take many forms: restoration, enhancement, reclamation, re-creation, rehabilitation, augmentation, and translocation
Rehabilitation is simply improving degraded habitat, maybe not restoring it
Reclamation may be stabilization of the land and/or minimizing further degradation

9. Restoration Ecology
Re-creation is an attempt to return to historic condition, accuracy…
Replacement may recreate a site, which may not be historically accurate
Enhancement or augmentation are attempting to add to the degraded condition, but not fully functional

10. Restoration Ecology
The majority of restoration activities target the plant community…why?
When might animals be involved?
Full restoration at all levels has never been attempted, although it is the goal

11. Restoration Ecology & Conservation
RE is a relatively young science and as such, has both advocates and critics
Some argue it is important and a good compromise while others suggest it is wasteful and expensive
There are some legal underpinning such as the Clean Water Act which requires restoration

12. Restoration Ecology & Conservation
A potential benefit of RE is the opportunity to conduct ecological studies, especially in community ecology, invasive biology, succession biology
A potential negative is that many systems are now viewed as ‘expendable’ or ‘replaceable’ on another site

13. Restoration Ecology & Conservation
Steps in designing and implementing ecological restorations
Goals and design should be reviewed and revised as data on site conditions are collected, community concerns addressed, and as the constructed restoration evolves

14. Restoration Ecology & Conservation

15. Restoration Ecology
Site assessment is the first step, usually in the form of surveys and then exploring the literature (published papers, maps, reports)
Legalities must be determined
Assess environmental history of site
If not available, contemporary comparisons maybe appropriate

16. Restoration Ecology
RE is an inherently subjective process and determining ‘success’ may require the establishment of goals
Goals will depend upon local constraints, objectives, and context of participants
Restored wetland…farmer vs. duck hunter

17. Restoration Ecology
Restoration design requires multidisciplinary approach (genes to ecosystem, as well as natural sciences)
Plans should dictate the physical transformation proposed for the site and the desired outcome (target species)

18. Restoration Ecology
There are many ways to implement a design, depending on time, money, labor, practicality
Getting as many people involved in the implementation will get locals to buy into the restoration effort
Proper documentation and design can subsequently serve as an experiment

19. Restoration Ecology
ER are long-term propositions and proper monitoring becomes less-likely
For adaptive management, it is necessary
Frequently disturbing site will release or open community to ‘weedy’ species
Compliance vs. scientific

20. Restoration Ecology
Restoration challenges are numerous as we are generally dealing with dynamic, complex, and unique systems
Furthermore, the site may have many limitations (landscape context, size, heterogeneity, plus more…)

21. Restoration Ecology
It may be difficult to properly address restoration because we lack knowledge
B&M have relatively good databases, but most other groups lack good information
Even when we know the organisms (e.g. clapper rail) we can screw up (CS 15.1);

22. Restoration Ecology
When we identify knowledge gaps, we may be able to then fill them

23. Restoration Ecology
For example, what if herbivory was limiting reestablishment of native sp in a grassland? What measures could we take?
What about if N is limiting?

24. Restoration Ecology
Restoration is frequently restricted to the plant community
However, even if animals are the focus of the conservation effort, restoring habitat may be the best action (but see CS 15.4 & 15.5)
Furthermore, a ‘functioning’ ecosystem should ‘trickle-up’ and eventually affect the entire community

25. Restoration Ecology
Population genetics can play an important role in RE. How?
Does this change with a relatively large disturbance and large distribution project?

26. Restoration Ecology
Restoration effects that focus on a small scale may succeed in the short term, but fail in the longer because the larger ecological context required to allow these restoration efforts to be self-sustaining is either not present, too degraded, operating at too small a scale
Some times, some things may not even be able to be addressed (e.g. hydrology)

27. Restoration Ecology
Many local restoration projects cannot draw on larger or regional populations to recruit from and consequently, may not reflect historical conditions
It may be necessary to restore them to a stable, but less diverse current state

28. Restoration Ecology
While RE claims to be interdisciplinary, in reality it may focus on a single sp or single environmental factor

29. Restoration Ecology
Most animal restoration attempt to bring individuals back to a site rather than foster or enhance a preexisting pop(n)
Most animal reintroductions have been charismatic megafauna (e.g. wolf, CA condor, buffalo, beaver)
The Reintroduction Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) created guidelines for reintroductions

30. Restoration Ecology
Step 1: conduct a feasibility study (autecology, availability of stockers, fulfilling same functional role)
Step 2: select sites w/in historic range, but habitat not vulnerable to same threats, and is protected
Step 3: ID and evaluate stock (genetics)
Step 4: evaluate social, political, and economic conditions for long-term survival

31. Restoration Ecology
Step 5: involve all stakeholders and get proper financing; design as experiment to judge success
Step 6: post-release monitoring should be done using an adaptive model

32. Restoration Ecology
Some of the common problems associated with reintroductions include: high juvenile mortality, loss of rare alleles and genetic diversity, reproductive dysfunction, and other problems associated with inbreeding of small populations

33. Restoration in Marine Habitats
Marine restoration has received very little attention… but there are a number of efforts (where?)

34. Restoration in Marine Habitats
Mangrove systems are strongly being addressed… previously the major threat had been clearing for shrimp ponds

35. Restoration in Marine Habitats
In many coral reef restoration projects, physical structure is placed on bottom

36. Restoration in Marine Habitats

37. Restoration in Marine Habitats
Unfortunately, many projects stop at this point and assume if structure is provided, the reef will come…how?
Sometimes restoration will include translocation of healthy fragments

38. Environmental Regulations and Restoration
Restoration can be expensive (e.g. $3ft2 or $130K/acre) and many potential pitfalls exist
Regulation in the US
Inspired by the ‘dust bowl’, the Natural Resources Conservation Service develops and disseminates comprehensive info on management techniques for soil and water

39. Environmental Regulations and Restoration
In 1969, NEPA was passed and proactively established environmental standards
Nixon created the EPA to coordinate and oversee NEPA
Wetland restoration is in large part a result of the Clean Water Act (’72) which dictated “no net loss of areas and/or function”

40. Environmental Regulations and Restoration
Other significant laws: ESA (’73)
“to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered ad threatened species depend may be conserved and to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered and threatened species”
Unfortunately, the ESA allows the taking of plants, but not animals (unless endangered animal present)…but there are some state laws protecting end plants

41. Environmental Regulations and Restoration
For those projects that are expected to impact endangered species, mitigation of impacted habitat may be required

42. Environmental Regulations and Restoration
Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977) attempt to protect the adverse impact of environmental surface mining (particularly coal)
In theory, mines must commit to returning the land to pre-mine conditions
Unfortunately, this does not apply to any pre-1977 site, as well as many other types of minerals (e.g. gold, silver, lead)

43. Environmental Regulations and Restoration
There is a great deal of variation from one country to another regarding the regulations of mining
The United Nations Conference on Human Environment (1972) attempted to stop the impact of mining
In the Rio de Janeiro (’92) summit they specifically addressed reclamation of degraded habitats

44. Restoration Ecology