Ecological restoration using intertidal foundation species: Considerations and potential for rockweed restoration

Abstract

Foundation species, such as trees, corals, grasses, oysters, and rockweeds, must be common and abundant to effectively modify the physical environment and increase biodiversity by buffering environmental stress. Yet many of these important species have been declining due to disease, climate change, and other factors. A prime example is the precipitous population decline of marine rockweeds, which is attributed to increased urbanization and its accompanying impacts. Rockweeds provide three‐dimensional habitat in harsh rocky intertidal environments and regulate ecosystem functioning, essential roles that no substitute species are capable of filling. Recovery of impacted rockweed populations is typically slow and unpredictable due to their limited dispersal capacity. These issues have motivated efforts to conserve remaining populations of rockweeds and reestablish or enhance depleted ones. Successfully doing so requires a robust understanding of factors that affect survival of the species and the processes that influence ecosystem structure, along with rigorous scientific testing of restoration methods and the factors that affect restoration success. In this comprehensive review, we summarize the current knowledge of rockweed ecology, highlight studies that could inform restoration practices, and recommend ways to improve our ability to implement scalable restoration of rockweeds and accompanying ecosystem‐wide benefits.

Macroalgal features and their influence on associated biodiversity: implications for conservation and restoration

“…Based on most of the evidence reviewed here, such changes are most likely detrimental to diversity or abundance metrics (Ellison et al, 2005;Norderhaug et al, 2005;Marzinelli et al, 2016). Conserving or restoring by protecting, planting, or transplanting key seaweed species is complex, resource intensive, and provides variable levels of success due to many unaccounted factors (Marzinelli et al, 2016;Whitaker et al, 2023). However, when facing the accelerated loss or displacement of seaweed species caused by climate change (see Bindoff et al, 2019), they represent the best approach for protecting the ecological services they provide and a diversity of reliant organisms that otherwise may be lost as well.…”

From local seafloor imagery to global patterns in benthic habitat states: contribution of citizen science to habitat classification across latitudes

“…As modifiers to abiotic substrates, foundation species, such as kelp, seagrass, and corals engineer biogenic habitats that contribute to specific functions of coastal ecosystems (Elith and Leathwick 2009). For instance, the tridimensional structure of coral reefs can shelter fish assemblages from predators (Hixon and Beets 1993); seaweed or mussel beds can buffer environmental conditions (Jurgens, Ashlock, and Gaylord 2022; Whitaker et al 2023); and kelp forests are both habitat and food sources for various fish and invertebrate species (Graham J. Edgar, N. S. Barrett, and Morton 2004). Thus, changes in coastal benthic habitats have direct cascading consequences on marine ecosystem structure, functioning and services.…”