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Accompanying the climate crisis is the more enigmatic biodiversity crisis. Rapid reorganization of biodiversity due to global environmental change has defied prediction and tested the basic tenets of conservation and restoration. Conceptual and practical innovation is needed to support decision making in the face of these unprecedented shifts. Critical questions include: How can we generalize biodiversity change at the community level? When are systems able to reorganize and maintain integrity, and when does abiotic change result in collapse or restructuring? How does this understanding provide a template to guide when and how to intervene in conservation and restoration? To this end, we frame changes in community organization as the modulation of external abiotic drivers on the internal topology of species interactions, using plant-plant interactions in terrestrial communities as a starting point. We then explore how this framing can help translate available data on species abundance and trait distributions to corresponding decisions in management. Given the expectation that community response and reorganization are highly complex, the external-driver internal-topology (EDIT) framework offers a way to capture general patterns of biodiversity that can help guide resilience and adaptation in changing environments. more...

Restoration ecology commonly seeks to re-establish species of interest in degraded habitats. Despite a rich understanding of how succession influences re-establishment, there are several outstanding questions that remain unaddressed: are short-term abundances sufficient to determine long-term re-establishment success, and what factors contribute to unpredictable restorations outcomes? In other words, when restoration fails, is it because the restored habitat is substandard, because of strong competition with invasive species, or alternatively due to changing environmental conditions that would equally impact established populations? Here, we re-purpose tools developed from modern coexistence theory to address these questions, and apply them to an effort to restore the endangered Contra Costa goldfields (Lasthenia conjugens) in constructed (restored) California vernal pools. Using 16 years of data, we construct a population model of L. conjugens, a species of conservation concern due primarily to habitat loss and invasion of exotic grasses. We show that initial, short-term appearances of restoration success from population abundances is misleading, as year-to-year fluctuations cause long-term population growth rates to fall below zero. The failure of constructed pools is driven by lower maximum growth rates compared with reference (natural) pools, coupled with a stronger negative sensitivity to annual fluctuations in abiotic conditions that yield decreased maximum growth rates. Nonetheless, our modeling shows that fluctuations in competition (mainly with exotic grasses) benefit L. conjugens through periods of competitive release, especially in constructed pools of intermediate pool depth. We therefore show how reductions in invasives and seed addition in pools of particular depths could change the outcome of restoration for L. conjugens. By applying a largely theoretical framework to the urgent goal of ecological restoration, our study provides a blueprint for predicting restoration success, and identifies future actions to reverse species loss. more...

Restoration has long used the reference concept as a cornerstone in setting targets, designing interventions, and benchmarking success. Following the initial applications of restoration references, however, the definition and broader relevance has been debated. Particularly in an era of directional global change, using historic or even contemporary ecosystem models has been contentious among restoration scientists and practitioners. In response, there have been calls for increasing flexibility in how references are defined and diversifying sources of data used to describe a reference. Previous frameworks suggest reference information can be drawn from sources across two main axes of time and space, covering historic to contemporary sources, and near to far spatial scales. We extend these axes by including future projections of climate and species composition and regional ecological information that is spatially disconnected from defined ecosystem types. Using this new framework, we conducted a review of restoration literature published between 2010 and 2020, extracting the temporal and spatial scales of reference data and classifying reference metrics by data type. The studies overwhelmingly focused on contemporary, ecosystem‐specific references to benchmark a completed project's success. The most commonly reported reference metrics were plant‐based, and contemporary reference data sources were more diverse than historical or future reference data. As global conditions continue to shift, we suggest that restoration projects would benefit by expanding reference site information to include forecasted and spatially diverse data. A greater diversity of data sources can enable higher flexibility and long‐term restoration success in the face of global change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Information on restoration science and practice is dispersed across large numbers of scientific papers, reports, books, and other resources, and there is a lack of synthetic approaches and of linkages between ecological theory and practice. With recent calls for scaling up ecological restoration, there is an urgent need for improving the effectiveness of restoration ecology by presenting existing knowledge in an organized and accessible form. Practitioners benefit from knowing which theories explain patterns and processes in a specific ecosystem, and scientists need an overview of empirical evidence supporting current theories. Strengthening links between restoration practice and science benefits both areas. Based on a new approach used for organizing and assessing hypotheses in invasion biology, we suggest the development of an interactive online platform that promotes the integration of restoration science and practice by (1) presenting an overview of restoration ecology; (2) mapping theoretical work relevant for ecological restoration; (3) displaying direct links to relevant publications; and (4) providing summaries of empirical evidence for ecological theories in specific settings. This online knowledge base should be developed in an open process, bringing together the restoration community with experts in semantic web and natural language processing, library scientists, web designers, and other specialists. The platform should become an evolving, searchable, openly accessible, and intuitively organized tool for future ecological restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

In the face of rapid environmental change, restoration will need to emphasize innovative approaches that support the long‐term resilience of social and ecological systems. To this end, we highlight the critical, but often overlooked, role of adaptive capacity, which enables restoration practice, governance, and target ecosystems to adapt to directional environmental change. We identify three core attributes of adaptive capacity: (1) diversity, (2) connectivity, and (3) flexibility. For each attribute, we describe key strategies, including enhancing mechanisms of ecological memory, facilitating the generation of beneficial novelty, and developing governance structures that are flexible and anticipatory. These core attributes can also lead to maladaptive outcomes; careful consideration of a social‐ecological system's resilience and vulnerabilities to environmental change will likely be critical to avoid unwanted outcomes. Ultimately, implementing strategies that increase adaptive capacity can bolster restoration efficacy as it seeks to confront the global challenge of rapid environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Ecosystem restoration is a fundamental way of delivering nature‐based solutions to improve resilience in a changing climate and sustain biodiversity. Spatial analyses to identify where ecosystem restoration would yield targeted environmental benefits are critical to inform, and coordinate restoration initiatives at multiple scales to achieve national commitments and global goals. Here, we provide an optimization analysis for restoration potential of converted terrestrial ecosystems in Canada by integrating carbon storage and biodiversity benefits as key considerations. Our results show that converted landscapes are prevalent in southern anthropic regions of Canada, with the greatest potential for biodiversity benefits through forest and grassland restoration. At national scales, carbon density (tonnes C/km2) and total carbon storage (tonnes C) potential were greatest for wetland and forest restoration, respectively. When biodiversity and carbon were both included in an optimization framework, consistent priorities across all three restoration targets (50,000; 100,000; and 150,000 km2) comprised forest restoration in the St. Lawrence and Lake Erie Lowlands, with the Lake Manitoba Plains, Interlake Plains, and Manitoulin‐Lake Simcoe ecoregions also frequently identified. Our analysis will help decision‐makers identify where restoration of converted lands may support considerable gains in simultaneously achieving climate and biodiversity goals in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) published the second edition of its International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration in 2019. We conducted a pan‐Canadian study using semi‐structured interviews with restoration professionals to explore the extent to which restoration practitioners are aware of the document and use it. Overall, we found that direct uptake of the document by practitioners was lower than expected, with approximately 37.7% of all participants that were both aware of and consulting the publication for guidance in their practice of ecological restoration. This is due in part to low awareness of the document itself, with only a small majority (56.5%) of interviewees being aware of it. Other reasons listed by practitioners such as the structure of the publication, its added value, and its suitability for on‐the‐ground work revealed why some individuals aware of the existence of the document still failed to consult it. Here, we present a more nuanced assessment of these observations and share our findings with the ecological restoration community to address this disconnection. With intensifying pressures to achieve restoration success internationally, SER's guidance is critical. We analyze why it seems guidance from SER is not being taken up as fully as it might, and ways in which future versions may be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...