10
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Terrestrial ecosystem restoration increases biodiversity and reduces its variability, but not to reference levels: A global meta‐analysis

      review-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Ecological restoration projects often have variable and unpredictable outcomes, and these can limit the overall impact on biodiversity. Previous syntheses have investigated restoration effectiveness by comparing average restored conditions to average conditions in unrestored or reference systems. Here, we provide the first quantification of the extent to which restoration affects both the mean and variability of biodiversity outcomes, through a global meta‐analysis of 83 terrestrial restoration studies. We found that, relative to unrestored (degraded) sites, restoration actions increased biodiversity by an average of 20%, while decreasing the variability of biodiversity (quantified by the coefficient of variation) by an average of 14%. As restorations aged, mean biodiversity increased and variability decreased relative to unrestored sites. However, restoration sites remained, on average, 13% below the biodiversity of reference (target) ecosystems, and were characterised by higher (20%) variability. The lower mean and higher variability in biodiversity at restored sites relative to reference sites remained consistent over time, suggesting that sources of variation (e.g. prior land use, restoration practices) have an enduring influence on restoration outcomes. Our results point to the need for new research confronting the causes of variability in restoration outcomes, and close variability and biodiversity gaps between restored and reference conditions.

          Abstract

          For the first time, we assess the response of terrestrial biodiversity to restoration measures considering variability alongside mean response. We find that on average, restoration increases mean biodiversity and decreases variability of biodiversity. However, reference sites consistently display both the highest mean and least variable levels of biodiversity.

          Related collections

          Most cited references171

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Measuring inconsistency in meta-analyses.

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta-analysis.

            The extent of heterogeneity in a meta-analysis partly determines the difficulty in drawing overall conclusions. This extent may be measured by estimating a between-study variance, but interpretation is then specific to a particular treatment effect metric. A test for the existence of heterogeneity exists, but depends on the number of studies in the meta-analysis. We develop measures of the impact of heterogeneity on a meta-analysis, from mathematical criteria, that are independent of the number of studies and the treatment effect metric. We derive and propose three suitable statistics: H is the square root of the chi2 heterogeneity statistic divided by its degrees of freedom; R is the ratio of the standard error of the underlying mean from a random effects meta-analysis to the standard error of a fixed effect meta-analytic estimate, and I2 is a transformation of (H) that describes the proportion of total variation in study estimates that is due to heterogeneity. We discuss interpretation, interval estimates and other properties of these measures and examine them in five example data sets showing different amounts of heterogeneity. We conclude that H and I2, which can usually be calculated for published meta-analyses, are particularly useful summaries of the impact of heterogeneity. One or both should be presented in published meta-analyses in preference to the test for heterogeneity. Copyright 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement

              David Moher and colleagues introduce PRISMA, an update of the QUOROM guidelines for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                j.atkinson@unsw.edu.au
                Journal
                Ecol Lett
                Ecol Lett
                10.1111/(ISSN)1461-0248
                ELE
                Ecology Letters
                John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Hoboken )
                1461-023X
                1461-0248
                12 May 2022
                July 2022
                : 25
                : 7 ( doiID: 10.1111/ele.v25.7 )
                : 1725-1737
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ] Evolution & Ecology Research Centre School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences UNSW Sydney Kensington New South Wales Australia
                [ 2 ] Department of Plant Biology and Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Michigan State University East Lansing Michigan USA
                Author notes
                [*] [* ] Correspondence

                Joe Atkinson, Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Kensington, NSW, Australia.

                Email: j.atkinson@ 123456unsw.edu.au

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9232-4421
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3857-2165
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8799-8728
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7765-5182
                https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2041-7762
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6608-9912
                Article
                ELE14025
                10.1111/ele.14025
                9320827
                35559594
                69a3befa-82fc-430c-a3cc-8c75220ffd91
                © 2022 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

                This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 06 March 2022
                : 13 January 2022
                : 23 April 2022
                Page count
                Figures: 6, Tables: 0, Pages: 13, Words: 9629
                Categories
                Synthesis
                Synthesis
                Custom metadata
                2.0
                July 2022
                Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_JATSPMC version:6.1.7 mode:remove_FC converted:26.07.2022

                Ecology
                biodiversity,ecological restoration,lncvr,meta‐analysis,terrestrial,variability
                Ecology
                biodiversity, ecological restoration, lncvr, meta‐analysis, terrestrial, variability

                Comments

                Comment on this article