Ecology
Ecology is the scientific analysis and study of interactions among organisms and their environment. It is an interdisciplinary field that includes biology, geography and Earth science. Ecology includes the study of interactions organisms have with each other, other organism…
What is ecosystem restoration?
What is Ecosystem Restoration? Ecosystem restoration means assisting in the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded or destroyed, as well as conserving the ecosystems that are still intact.
Why is it important to restore ecology?
Without ecology restoration, the delicate balance of ecosystems will continue to decline with dire results. Restoration ecology fixes the damage that humans caused, restoring damaged or polluted environments to their former glory. This environment needs trash cleanup to be restored.
What are some examples of ecological restoration?
Examples of ecosystems are rivers, mountain ranges and prairies. Ecological restoration can occur to heal human-caused damage, but it's also sometimes implemented to aid nature after such natural disasters as volcanic eruptions. Without ecology restoration, the delicate balance of ecosystems will continue to decline with dire results.
Is it possible to restore an ecosystem to its former state?
Even with dedicated, long-term restoration ecology practices, it may be impossible to fully restore an ecosystem to its former state. However, partial restoration and stability of native biodiversity is still better than total collapse.
What is an example of ecological restoration?
Examples of restoration projects implemented throughout the country include: the addition of habitat to Fish and Wildlife Service Refuges, National Parks, state parks and tribal lands; invasive species control; fish passage in streams and rivers; construction of bird nesting islands; wetland, saltmarsh, and eel grass ...
What is ecological restoration and why is it important?
Ecological restoration aims to recreate, initiate, or accelerate the recovery of an ecosystem that has been disturbed. Disturbances are environmental changes that alter ecosystem structure and function. Common disturbances include logging, damming rivers, intense grazing, hurricanes, floods, and fires.
What is ecological restoration in conservation?
Restoration ecology is the scientific study of repairing disturbed ecosystems through human intervention. Where conservation biology is often focused on preventing ongoing degradation, restoration ecology seeks to actively reverse such degradation.
How do you do ecological restoration?
The practice of ecological restoration includes wide scope of projects including: erosion control, reforestation, removal of non-native species and weeds, revegetation of disturbed areas, daylighting streams, reintroduction of native species, as well as habitat and range improvement for targeted species.
What is ecological restoration PDF?
Definitions. Ecological Restoration (ER) is defined by the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) as “the process of. assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed”.
What is an example of restoration?
Restoration is the act of repairing or renewing something. An example of restoration is fixing an old house to its original state. An example of restoration is giving someone their job back. An example of a restoration is rebuilding a set of bones to represent a dinosaur.
What are the elements of ecological restoration?
Principles of good ecological restoration practice include: Incorporating biological and environmental spatial variation into the design. Allowing for linkages within the larger landscape. Emphasizing process repair over structural replacement. Allowing sufficient time for self-generating processes to resume.
What are the five main components of restoration?
While synthesizing these concepts, we emphasize five main components of successful restoration: (1) defining correct and meaningful baselines and selecting realistic and appropriate restoration endpoints, (2) balancing restoration where it is needed most with where it will most likely to be successful, (3) creating ...
What are the methods of restoration?
Conservation and Restoration MethodsAbandoned Mine Drainage Remediation.Aquatic Organism Passage.Large Woody Material Restoration.Riparian Tree Planting.Soil Bioengineering.Traditional In-stream Habitat and Streambank Stabilization.
What are four ecological restoration approaches?
Essential elements of the approach are (1) introduction to ecological problems that restoration can address; (2) rationale for restoration; (3) training in a step-wise process for restoration; and (4) group problem-solving and design of ecological restoration projects to address various problems.
What are 5 ways to help the environment?
Ten Simple Things You Can Do to Help Protect the EarthReduce, reuse, and recycle. Cut down on what you throw away. ... Volunteer. Volunteer for cleanups in your community. ... Educate. ... Conserve water. ... Choose sustainable. ... Shop wisely. ... Use long-lasting light bulbs. ... Plant a tree.More items...•
What are the benefits of ecological restoration?
Benefits of ecorestoration involve erosion control, re-vegetation, re-forestation, removal of nonnative plants and weeds, and reintroduction of native species, and habitat and soil condition improvement for the targeted species.
Why is it important to restore damaged ecosystems?
Restoring landscapes and marine ecosystems is urgent not only because they are home to countless plant and animals, but because the services they provide are worth an estimated $125 trillion every year to the global economy.
What is ecological restoration?
Ecological restoration, the process of repairing sites in nature whose biological communities (that is, interacting groups of various species in a common location) and ecosystems have been degraded or destroyed.
How do restorationists restore ecosystems?
To repair and restore ecosystems, restoration specialists apply concepts from the field of ecology. For example, in temperate coniferous forests, plant species provide food and shelter for various animals. The forest ecosystem provides important services, such as nutrient cycling, both for the animals that live there and for humans who use the forest for timber and recreation. To remain healthy, many forest species rely on periodic disturbances such as wildfires. However, some disturbances, such as deforestation, are so damaging that they may instead impair the normal functioning of the forest by increasing soil erosion or by eliminating wildlife habitat. Thus, restorationists must understand the ecosystem’s pattern of ecological disturbances. ( Disturbance ecology is the subdiscipline of ecology that explores the causes and consequences of both natural and anthropogenic [human-caused] disturbances.) In order to restore a deforested site, restoration ecologists often attempt to reverse the ecological changes caused by the removal of trees and other plants, the displacement of animals, and changes to the now-exposed soil (which may be more prone to drying and erosion after deforestation). Ecological succession, the long-term evolution of the structure of an ecosystem’s biological community that follows a disturbance event, is also an important part of the restoration process.
How have humans altered the ecosystem?
In many ecosystems, humans have altered local native populations of plants and animals, introduced invasive species, converted natural communities to extractive use (such as agriculture or mining ), fouled waters, and degraded soil resources . Ecological restoration focuses on repairing the damage human activities have caused to natural ecosystems ...
What are the environmental problems of the 21st century?
Solving the critical environmental problems of global warming, water scarcity, pollution, and biodiversity loss are perhaps the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Will we rise to meet them?
Ecological restoration is more than just planting trees
In response to growing concerns about climate change and deforestation, activists have placed significant emphasis on reforestation as a strategy to both repair the land and combat global warming.
The importance of ongoing conservation and management efforts
Although ecologists can often partially rehabilitate degraded or destroyed ecosystems, these efforts can fail. Conservation, i.e. the ongoing protection and management of natural ecosystems, must be prioritized to ensure those ecosystems remain for future generations.
Learning opportunities
For more information , check out the Society for Ecological Restoration. If you are interested in pursuing additional education in this field, consider the campus-based Bachelor of Science in Restoration Ecology or fully online Master of Natural Resource Stewardship with a focus on Ecological Restoration from Colorado State University.
What is ecological restoration?
Ecological restoration is a holistic approach to reconstructing mine degraded land that is mostly used for agriculture and forestry purposes. Thus, the integration of restoration strategies into mine planning is important for sustainable mining.
Why is ecological restoration important?
Thus, it is essential to harmonize the ecological effects with due consideration to present and future social/demographic changes, as the goal is to benefit both nature and the human society.
How does ecological restoration help the ecosystem?
Ecological restoration is a term that defines a broad set of activities and incorporates enhancing, repairing or reconstructing degraded ecosystems and optimizes biodiversity returns. Benefits of ecorestoration involve erosion control, re-vegetation, re-forestation, removal of nonnative plants and weeds, and reintroduction of native species, and habitat and soil condition improvement for the targeted species. Ecological restoration with biodiversity benefits in mind needs to be innovative as different areas represent unique circumstances. The objective should be restoring the pre-mining ecosystem, and the following factors should be considered: cost-benefit analysis, speed of attainment, achievability, and long-term stability with ongoing management at a reasonable cost. The mining companies should understand that simple reclamation of mined-out land by planting some fast-grown trees will not serve the purpose of recovery of degraded land. Instead, the target should be rebuilding the ecosystem through ecological restoration (Rathfon et al., 2005 ). It has been experimentally proved that biodiversity could be restored by ecological restoration only ( Ahirwal et al., 2016 ). For successful ecorestoration, selection of plants, soil fertility and nutrients presence, soil moisture availability, soil texture, pH, and salinity ( Purdy et al., 2005; Zipper et al., 2011; Davis et al., 2012; Huang et al., 2013) all are important. The following section discusses the important factors needed for re-vegetation.
Why should landscapes be preserved?
Furthermore, the heritage and aesthetic value of traditional landscapes should be preserved by specific land management plans with due consideration for the emerging issues of climate change and variability. Based on case studies done in the Denver basin in Flanders, Belgium, Dupont and Van Eetvelde (2013) observed that some plans lead to deterioration of the traditional character of the land and threaten the natural-scientific, historical, and aesthetic values of the landscape. Thus, the quality and heritage value of the landscape must be preserved, and climate change vulnerability and adaptation maps must be considered in any landscape management plans ( Dupont and Van Eetvelde, 2013 ).
How does afforestation affect the environment?
In addition to addressing the short-term and ever-growing needs of human society, the long-term effects on nature must be addressed. For example, large-scale afforestation in China’s arid and semiarid regions has led to several unforeseen consequences. Cao et al. (2011) reported that the use of inappropriate species and an overemphasis on tree and shrub planting has compromised the environmental good. Excessive reliance on afforestation has led to the deterioration of soil ecosystems, decreased vegetation cover, and exacerbated water shortages because climatic, pedological, hydrological, and landscape factors were ignored ( Cao et al., 2011 ).
How does soil affect re-vegetation?
Soil moisture and quality: The importance of soil moisture on re-vegetation can be seen in the re-vegetation sites of the northern hemisphere. For example, the northern aspect of hillsides offered greater soil moisture, more rapid and dense establishment of vegetation than the opposite side which was relatively dry. Soil chemical property determines re-vegetation success. Soil liming by way of FA addition and fertilization make mine soils more favorable for plant cover establishment under limiting conditions ( Grant et al., 2007 ). Mine soils with high levels of heavy metals can be treated with chemical chelators to reduce their bioavailability or metal tolerant plant species can be chosen that would immobilize the contaminants. However, plants that phytoextract metals and store them in foliage should be avoided ( Wong, 2003 ).
What is the difference between a novel and hybrid ecosystem?
In contrast, hybrid ecosystems, where the changes are reversible, can be the targets for restoration, but not all hybrid ecosystems will have the same conservation value.
What is ecological restoration and what is it for?
According to the Ecological Restoration Society (SER) , ecological restoration consists of the application of processes that allow the recovery of those ecosystems that have been degraded , damaged and / or destroyed.
Ecological restoration: phases
Next we will see, step by step, what are the main phases that are carried out in any ecological restoration process :
Types of ecological restoration – examples
In this last section we will define the different types of ecological restoration that exist according to their purpose, as well as some examples of the most surprising restoration projects that have been carried out in different countries:
What is ecosystem restoration?
Ecosystem restoration means assisting in the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded or destroyed, as well as conserving the ecosystems that are still intact. Healthier ecosystems, with richer biodiversity, yield greater benefits such as more fertile soils, bigger yields of timber and fish, and larger stores of greenhouse gases.
How much will the restoration of ecosystems cost?
Between now and 2030, the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems could generate US$9 trillion in ecosystem services. Restoration could also remove 13 to 26 gigatons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The economic benefits of such interventions exceed nine times the cost of investment, whereas inaction is at least three times more costly than ecosystem restoration.
How can we restore an ecosystem?
Restoration can happen in many ways – for example through actively planting or by removing pressures so that nature can recover on its own. It is not always possible – or desirable – to return an ecosystem to its original state. We still need farmland and infrastructure on land that was once forest, for instance, and ecosystems, like societies, need to adapt to a changing climate.
Who can launch restoration initiatives?
Restoration initiatives can be launched by almost anyone, from governments and development agencies to businesses, communities and individuals. That is because the causes of degradation are many and varied, and can have an impact at different scales.
