Ecological Restoration in a Changing World: The Role of History and Function

Cara Nelson (Univ. of Montana, USA): The field of ecological restoration has matured considerably over the last three

decades, growing from a relatively minor component of natural resource management

to a dominant activity in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. In the United States alone,

it is now an over-81-billion-dollar-per-year industry, with annual spending in the trillions

of dollars worldwide. As the scope and scale of restoration increases, there is a

corresponding need for increased understanding of the ecological goals of restoration

and, specifically, the role of history in setting restoration targets. Restoration aims to

remove degradation and transform a system into the condition it would have been in

had it not have been degraded. Because ecosystems are inherently dynamic, holding

an ecosystem in a static condition to match its condition at any previous point in time is

not an appropriate restoration goal. There is also a need to understand the types of

systems for which restoration is and is not achievable. Some systems may have

crossed biotic and abiotic thresholds that prevent effective ecological restoration; in

these so-called “novel ecosystems” functional attributes may be most important in

driving management activities.