Restoration is a young and swiftly developing field. It has been almost a decade since the inception of one of the field's foundational documents-the Society for Ecological Restoration International Primer on Ecological Restoration (Primer). Through a series of organized discussions, we assessed the Primer for its currency and relevance in the modern field of ecological restoration. We focused our assessment on the section entitled "The Nine Attributes of a Restored Ecosystem" and grouped each of the attributes into one of four categories: species composition, ecosystem function, ecosystem stability, and landscape context. We found that in the decade since the document's inception, the concepts, methods, goals, and thinking of ecological restoration have shifted significantly. We discuss each of the four categories in this light with the aim of offering comments and suggestions on options for updating the Primer. We also include a fifth category that we believe is increasingly acknowledged in ecological restoration: the human element. The Primer is an important document guiding the practice of restoration. We hope that this critical assessment contributes to its ongoing development and relevance and more generally to the development of restoration ecology, particularly in our current era of rapid environmental change.
23Effective management and conservation of biodiversity requires understanding of 24 predator-prey relationships to ensure the continued existence of both predator and prey 25 populations. Gathering dietary data from predatory species, such as insectivorous bats, 26 often presents logistical challenges, further exacerbated in biodiversity hotspots 27 because prey items are highly speciose yet their taxonomy is largely undescribed. We 28 used high-throughput sequencing (HTS) and bioinformatic analyses to phylogenetically 29 group DNA sequences into molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs) to examine 30 predator-prey dynamics of three sympatric insectivorous bat species in the biodiversity 31 hotspot of south-western Australia. We could only assign between 4-20% of MOTUs to 32 known genera or species, depending on the method used, underscoring the importance 33 of examining dietary diversity irrespective of taxonomic knowledge in areas lacking a 34 comprehensive genetic reference database. MOTU analysis confirmed that resource 35 partitioning occurred, with dietary divergence positively related to the 36 ecomorphological divergence of the three bat species. We predicted bat species' diets 37 would converge during times of high energetic requirements, i.e., the maternity season 38 for females and the mating season for males. There was an interactive effect of season 39 on female, but not male, bat species' diets, although small sample sizes may have limited 40 our findings. Contrary to our predictions, females of two ecomorphologically similar 41 species showed dietary convergence during the mating season rather than the maternity 42 season. HTS-based approaches can help elucidate complex predator-prey relationships 43 in highly speciose regions, which should facilitate the conservation of biodiversity in 44 genetically uncharacterised areas, such as biodiversity hotspots. 45
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