Challenges and directions toward a general theory of ecological recovery dynamics: A metacommunity perspective

Montoya, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2021.07.012

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 98 publications

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“…mesocosms), or through dynamic models (e.g. models of metacommunity dynamics proposed by Montoya 2021). Often, these important community pieces are top predators (Sergio et al 2005, 2008, Ritchie and Johnson 2009, Zarnetske et al 2012, Urban et al 2017) or keystone species (Mills and Doak 1993, Power et al 1996).…”

Section: Moving Forward With Restoration In the Anthropocenementioning

confidence: 99%

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An eco‐evolutionary perspective on the humpty‐dumpty effect and community restoration

Evans

Zímová

Giery

et al. 2022

Oikos

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In recent decades, anthropogenic and natural disturbances have increased in rate and intensity around the world, leaving few ecosystems unaffected. As a result of the interactions among these multiple disturbances, many biological communities now occur in a degraded state as collections of fragmented ecological pieces. Restoration strategies are traditionally driven by assumptions that a community or ecosystem can be restored back to a pre‐disturbance state through ecological remediation. Yet despite our best efforts, attempts to restore fragmented communities are often unsuccessful. One explanation, the humpty‐dumpty effect, suggests that once a community is disassembled, it is difficult to reassemble it even in the presence of all the original pieces. This hypothesis, while potentially useful, often fails to incorporate the multitude of other critical mechanisms that affect our abilities to put fragmented communities back together. Here, we extend the original humpty‐dumpty analogy to incorporate eco‐evolutionary changes that can hinder successful restoration. A systematic literature review uncovered few studies that have explicitly considered how the original humpty‐dumpty effect has affected restoration success in the 30 years since its inception. Using case studies, we demonstrate how the application of our extended eco‐evolutionary humpty‐dumpty framework may determine the success of restoration actions via ecological and evolutionary changes in fragments of communities. Lastly, given continued anthropogenic disturbances and projected climatic changes, we make five recommendations to facilitate more successful restoration efforts given our revised eco‐evolutionary humpty‐dumpty effects framework. These guidelines, combined with clearly defined management goals are aimed at both keeping ecological communities as intact as possible while ensuring that future ecosystem restorations might more successfully put the ecological community pieces back together.

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Section: Moving Forward With Restoration In the Anthropocenementioning

confidence: 99%

“…mesocosms), or through dynamic models (e.g. models of metacommunity dynamics proposed by Montoya 2021).…”

Section: Moving Forward With Restoration In the Anthropocenementioning

confidence: 99%

An eco‐evolutionary perspective on the humpty‐dumpty effect and community restoration

Evans

Zímová

Giery

et al. 2022

Oikos

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“…Moreover, there is a substantial gap between science and practice (Cabin et al, 2010; Miller et al, 2017; Clark et al, 2019). Specifically, we currently lack a general theory of ecological recovery (Török and Helm, 2017; Montoya, 2021) which would enable us to develop a conceptual framework for providing rules of thumb on the most efficient restoration design.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat restoration and the recovery of metacommunities

Gawecka

Bascompte

2023

Preprint

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Ecosystem restoration is becoming a widely recognised solution to the biodiversity crisis. However, there is a gap between restoration science and practice. Specifically, we lack a theoretical framework which would improve our understanding of ecosystems' recovery and allow us to optimise restoration design. Here, we narrow this gap by developing spatially explicit metacommunity models and studying the recovery dynamics of communities during restoration. We show that community response depends on how damaged the landscape is prior to restoration, with highly fragmented landscapes imposing greater challenges to community recovery. In such cases, we found that the recovery depends on the type of interaction and the structure of the interaction network. Finally, we demonstrate that community recovery can be maximised with careful spatial planning. When recovering communities composed of antagonistic interactions, restoration should target areas adjacent to the most species-rich sites. In the case of mutualistic communities, the same strategy should be adopted in the short-term, whereas in the long-term, restoration should be extended to sites that improve the overall connectivity of the landscape. Our results highlight the importance of considering interactions between species and spatial planning in restoration projects.

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“…MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions, or products referred to in the content. can often take many years [20], yet is critical to understanding current and future trends for the function of ecosystems post-disturbance [10,[21][22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Habitat Structure Assembles Willow-Dependent Communities across the Primary Successional Watersheds of Mount St. Helens

Minsavage-Davis¹,

Garthwaite²,

Fisher³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Major disturbances fundamentally alter ecosystems through the transformation of both biotic and abiotic factors. The eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 resulted in a cataclysmic restructuring of its surrounding landscapes. The Pumice Plain is one of these landscapes, where tree species such as Sitka willow (Salix sitchensis) and their dependent communities have established along newly-formed streams. Thus, the study of these dependent communities provides a unique opportunity to investigate factors influencing metacommunity assembly during true primary succession. We analyzed the influence of landscape connectivity on metacommunity assembly through a novel application of circuit theory, alongside the effects of other factors such as stream locations, willow leaf chemistry, and leaf area. We found that landscape connectivity structures community composition on willows across the Pumice Plain, while our other factors had varied effects. Most importantly, multiple levels of spatial habitat structure linked via landscape connectivity can predict the presence of organisms lacking high rates of dispersal, such as the invasive stem-boring poplar weevil (Cryptorhynchus lapathi). This is critical for management as we show that the maintenance of a heterogeneous mixture of landscape connectivities and resource locations can facilitate meta-community dynamics to promote ecosystem function and mitigate the influences of invasive species.

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Challenges and directions toward a general theory of ecological recovery dynamics: A metacommunity perspective

Cited by 12 publications

References 98 publications

An eco‐evolutionary perspective on the humpty‐dumpty effect and community restoration

An eco‐evolutionary perspective on the humpty‐dumpty effect and community restoration

Habitat restoration and the recovery of metacommunities

Spatial Habitat Structure Assembles Willow-Dependent Communities across the Primary Successional Watersheds of Mount St. Helens

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