Shifting Baseline Syndrome as a Barrier to Ecological Restoration in the American Southwest

Wu, Tong; Petriello, Michael A.; Kim, Yeon-Su

doi:10.3368/er.29.3.213

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Unfortunately, much of the ecological data post-date the introduction of major agents of change, with our ecological understanding often largely restricted to studies of modern conditions in a highly altered system (Jackson et al 2001;Willis et al 2005;Pinnegar & Engelhard 2008). Consequently, the magnitude of change can be underestimated, causing systematic discrepancy between human perceptions and ecological reality, consistent with Shifting Baseline Syndrome (Pauly 1995; Pinnegar & Engelhard 2008;Papworth et al 2009;Wu et al 2011). This risks falsely perceiving modern conditions and ecological patterns as close to natural and less altered than they really are, resulting in conservation complacency, by hindering the instigation of effective management for biodiversity conservation and the establishment of suitable conservation targets (Jackson et al 2001;Wu et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…generations, and it is also likely that the condition known as 'Shifting Baseline Syndrome' has occurred, where the perceived condition of ecosystems changes over time due to generational change and loss of experience or knowledge about past conditions (Pauly 1995;Papworth et al 2009;Wu et al 2011). Therefore, there is likely great discrepancy between our perception of ecosystem condition and ecological reality, which compromises our ability to implement appropriate and effective conservation measures for remaining taxa and communities.…”

Section: Distorted Perceptions -A Symptom Of Limited Historical Informentioning

confidence: 99%

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Poor historical data drive conservation complacency: The case of mammal decline in south-eastern Australian forests

Bilney¹

2014

Austral Ecology

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Forested ecosystems of south-eastern Australia now differ physically, compositionally and functionally from their condition prior to European settlement. Understanding these changes, and how native species and entire ecosystems have responded, is crucial for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management.Here I argue that a combination of limited historical information and a knowledge base biased towards modern ecological studies has resulted in a distorted perception of ecosystem condition, hindering the instigation of effective biodiversity conservation measures. This argument is based on recently obtained information about changes to the non-volant mammal community, which reveals relatively recent but underreported ecological changes, including major declines in species distribution and abundance, shifts in niche utilization and associated disruption of ecosystem functions. Ultimately, many mammal species are being denied the capacity to function to the extent they did historically. Following this re-assessment, it is evident that current forest management does not adequately address contemporary conservation dilemmas posed by detrimental ecosystem changes. This is especially salient when most of the factors responsible for causing changes to the mammal community are still active and include forest management and utilization activities. Therefore, additional conservation measures are essential to meet forest stewardship and biodiversity conservation obligations.For the health, functionality and sustainability of forested ecosystems, native mammal species must be capable of functioning to their ecological potential and occupy their original niche. This will be facilitated by the suppression of threatening processes (primarily exotic species), ensuring ecologically sensitive fire regimes and the reintroduction/translocation of missing species. The recovery or restoration of forest functionality based on mammal conservation should have wide-scale benefits for biodiversity conservation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Distorted Perceptions -A Symptom Of Limited Historical Informentioning

confidence: 99%

Poor historical data drive conservation complacency: The case of mammal decline in south-eastern Australian forests

Bilney¹

2014

Austral Ecology

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“…According to the above mentioned, a better documentation of SBS about biological changes and the subsequent lack of awareness about prior ecosystem status will allow scientists to design more efficient restoration programs. The documentation of resource user's perceptions will provide information in order to both recognize the presence or absence of SBS and generate support for restoration and conservation measures [12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concerning the second reason, that is, the projects can overlook a mismatch between restoration goals and resource user's perceptions about that restoration goal [15], if not well-identified, the mismatch can generate a conflict among the scientists/technicians and resource users, reducing the restoration success. For example, Wu et al (2009) [14] report the inefficacy in restoring ponderosa pine forests in California, USA, due to the difference between people's perceptions and restoration Figure 1. Three pathways of restoration and subsequent steps to decide a reference condition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concerning the second reason, that is, the projects can overlook a mismatch between restoration goals and resource user's perceptions about that restoration goal [15], if not well-identified, the mismatch can generate a conflict among the scientists/technicians and resource users, reducing the restoration success. For example, Wu et al (2009) [14] report the inefficacy in restoring ponderosa pine forests in California, USA, due to the difference between people's perceptions and restoration practitioners about the ecosystem restored, which, from an ecological perspective, implies a decrease in ponderosa pine density. Therefore, recognizing SBS can give us evidence about both the biological change and the social perceptions of that environmental change, contributing to the achievements of restoration goals [14,16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Shifting Gears for the Use of the Shifting Baseline Syndrome in Ecological Restoration

2019

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There are two barriers to accomplishing restoration of ecosystems: insufficient information about historical baselines to guide restoration, and shifts between the actual baselines and perceptions about historical conditions. These two conditions generate a phenomenon called shifting baseline syndrome (SBS). Our study systematically reviewed and quantitatively analyzed the SBS studies. There is an increase and subsequent stabilization in the number of publications, 32% of scientific articles added new information and 5% of them delivered biological and social information required to demonstrate the SBS presence. Meta-analysis conducted showed an inconsistency between biological and social data. The inclusion of a greater amount of species in the biological data compared to social data produced the inconsistency. There must be an improvement in reporting both biological and social information to assess SBS. The integration of both sources of information would also enhance the success of restoration projects. The consideration of perceptions about resource users are also in accordance with global agreements about sustainable use of natural resources and ecological restoration.

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Increasing disturbance frequency undermines coral reef recovery

Emslie,

Logan,

Bray

et al. 2024

Ecological Monographs

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Climate‐driven alterations to disturbance regimes are increasingly disrupting patterns of recovery in many biomes. Here, we examine the impact of disturbance and subsequent level of recovery in live hard coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) across the last three decades. We demonstrate that a preexisting pattern of infrequent disturbances of limited spatial extent has changed to larger and more frequent disturbances, dominated by marine heatwaves and severe tropical cyclones. We detected an increase in the impact (measured as coral loss) across 265 individual disturbance impacts on 131 reefs in a 36‐year dataset (1985–2022). Additionally, the number of survey reefs impacted by disturbance has increased each decade from 6% in the 1980s to 44% in the 2010s, as has the frequency of mass coral bleaching across the GBR, which has increased between 19% and 28% per year, and cyclones (3%–5% per year), resulting in less time for recovery. Of the 265 disturbance impacts we recorded, complete recovery to the highest levels of coral cover recorded earlier in this study (the “historical benchmark”) occurred only 62 (23%) times. Of the 23% of disturbance impacts that resulted in complete recovery to historical benchmarks, 34/62 recovered to their benchmark in 2021 or 2022. Complete recovery was more likely when the historical benchmark was <25% live hard coral cover. The lack of recovery was attributed to recovery time windows becoming shorter due to increases in the frequency of cyclones and of thermal stress events that result in mass coral bleaching episodes. These results confirm that climate change is contributing to ecosystem‐wide changes in the ability of coral reefs to recover.

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Shifting Baseline Syndrome as a Barrier to Ecological Restoration in the American Southwest

Cited by 11 publications

References 13 publications

Poor historical data drive conservation complacency: The case of mammal decline in south-eastern Australian forests

Poor historical data drive conservation complacency: The case of mammal decline in south-eastern Australian forests

Shifting Gears for the Use of the Shifting Baseline Syndrome in Ecological Restoration

Increasing disturbance frequency undermines coral reef recovery

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