Taking the Long View: Integrating Recorded, Archeological, Paleoecological, and Evolutionary Data into Ecological Restoration

Abstract

Historical information spanning different temporal scales (from tens to millions of years) can influence restoration practice by providing ecological context for better understanding of contemporary ecosystems. Ecological history provides clues about the assembly, structure, and dynamic nature of ecosystems, and this information can improve forecasting of how restored systems will respond to changes in climate, disturbance regimes, and other factors. History recorded by humans can be used to generate baselines for assessing changes in ecosystems, communities, and populations over time. Paleoecology pushes these baselines back hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years, offering insights into how past species assemblages have responded to changing disturbance regimes and climate. Furthermore, archeology can be used to reconstruct interactions between humans and their environment for which no documentary records exist. Going back further, phylogenies reveal patterns that emerged from coupled evolutionary-ecological processes over very long timescales. Increasingly, this information can be used to predict the stability, resilience, and functioning of assemblages into the future. We review examples in which recorded, archeological, paleoecological, and evolutionary information has been or could be used to inform goal setting, management, and monitoring for restoration. While we argue that longview historical ecology has much to offer restoration, there are few examples of restoration projects explicitly incorporating such information or of research that has evaluated the utility of such perspectives in applied management contexts. For these ideas to move from theory into practice, tests performed through research-management partnerships are needed to determine to what degree taking the long view can support achievement of restoration objectives.

Compound‐specific amino acid δ15N values in archaeological shell: Assessing diagenetic integrity and potential for isotopic baseline reconstruction

“…For example, recent work in the open North Pacific has indicated several per mil baseline/bulk changes in exported primary production over the last ~1000 years, in both δ 13 C and δ 15 N values . Generally, similar changes in the magnitude of both bulk δ 13 C and δ 15 N values to those that we observed (with the exception of large offsets in sea urchins) have also been suggested in near shore and pelagic systems in the Pacific by a variety of additional studies across many ocean regions . While changes in isotope ratios are likely to vary in different ocean regions, such studies clearly demonstrate that baseline change in multiple ocean regions has occurred in the recent past, However, the lack of any consistency in both the magnitude and the direction of the SI offsets between taxa in our study does not strongly support the changing baseline hypothesis.…”

“…It is therefore possible that 35,48 Generally, similar changes in the magnitude of both bulk δ 13 C and δ 15 N values to those that we observed (with the exception of large offsets in sea urchins) have also been suggested in near shore and pelagic systems in the Pacific by a variety of additional studies across many ocean regions. 6,[49][50][51] While changes in isotope ratios are likely to vary in different ocean regions, such studies clearly demonstrate that baseline change in multiple ocean regions has occurred in the recent past, However, the lack of any consistency in both the magnitude and the direction of the SI offsets between taxa in our study does not strongly support the changing baseline hypothesis. At the same time, we acknowledge that one caveat for our sample set is that baseline changes might not necessarily be expected to be similar for animals with different feeding strategies (e.g., filter feeders vs macro-algal grazers).…”

Restored tallgrass prairies have reduced phylogenetic diversity compared with remnants

“…Furthermore, phylogenetic diversity can be a useful component of ongoing monitoring for restoration (Montoya, Rogers & Memmott ; Barak et al . ). Species from missing clades could be added in later stages of restoration.…”

“…Understanding discrepancies between restored and reference systems with respect to phylogenetic diversity and composition can also aid in identifying historical constraints to restoration and shaping future restoration objectives (Barak et al . ; Turley & Brudvig ). Whilst there are many metrics for quantifying phylogenetic diversity, mean pairwise distance (MPD) and mean nearest taxon distance (MNTD) are commonly used in community ecology and have shown utility for community‐level comparisons (Tucker et al .…”

Testing the phylogenetic gambit: how much functional diversity can we reliably conserve if we prioritize phylogenetic diversity?

“…Following this logic, phylogenetic diversity has formed the basis of global conservation schemes, notably the EDGE program 18 has been used by restoration biologists 19 and has been widely embraced by researchers across the biodiversity sciences 20–23 . Despite this enthusiasm, the critical question of whether maximizing PD will actually capture more FD than prioritization schemes that ignore phylogeny has, to our knowledge, never been empirically tested 16 .…”