Northern Illinois University, Biological Sciences, DeKalb, IL 60115
Preservation of biodiversity is perhaps the ultimate goal of the field of conservation biology. Conservation biologists often advocate the restoration of degraded habitat to conditions more suitable for native species. However, ecological restoration can be both financially expensive and labor intensive. With limited resources available to both non-governmental organizations and governments alike, it is imperative to answer a key question: when and where should ecological restoration be prescribed? We are performing a large-scale meta-analysis of the literature to elucidate the characteristics of ecosystem recovery and restoration with unprecedented breadth and scope. We present preliminary data obtained by the analysis of 75 articles already reviewed. Review of an additional 673 articles for pertinent data is ongoing. We investigated different habitat categories and perturbations to compare the efficacy of active restoration with passive recovery. Our results so far indicate that marine/benthic habitats and perturbations due to eutrophication lead to the best outcomes when actively restored or mitigated. Due to the nature of the marine environment, other parts of the marine ecosystem (water surface, pelagic zone, coastline, etc) should likely be considered for restoration as well. It is important to note that these data may or may not yet be correlated with intrinsic properties of ecosystems, disturbances, or methods of restoration. This knowledge may be useful in helping restoration ecologists identify areas where active restoration can lead to the timely mitigation of a perturbation.
[Abstract (DOC)]