Restoring Resilient Ecosystems (RestREco)
Lead Research Organisation:
UK CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY & HYDROLOGY
Department Name: Biodiversity (Wallingford)
Abstract
There is a global biodiversity crisis driven by mounting pressures including land degradation and climate change. Within the UK, responses include the Government's 25 Year Environment Plan, which sets out a vision to secure a more biodiverse, connected and resilient landscape. The Natural Capital Committee has argued for the need to secure Net Environmental Gains, and this is a provision of the upcoming Environment Bill. A recent report from the UK Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology highlights the needs to secure our natural capital, not just to support biodiversity, but also ensure the provision of wider ecosystem services. Questions remain, however, as to how we achieve net environmental gain; what should go where? What does success look like? How long may it take to reassemble resilient communities that can reliably deliver ecosystem services?
One widely adopted approach to securing net environmental gain is that of "ecological restoration". However, using specific natural and semi-natural ecosystems to define endpoints is increasingly contested, as target "pristine" states are hard to define, climate change is leading to a shifting baseline, and there is a need to restore ecosystems that are resilient to future pressures. We need a new paradigm for goal-seeking in ecological restoration which goes beyond reference systems, is agnostic as to prior assumptions of intactness, integrity and system "health", based on diagnostics of characteristics of functionally intact systems.
There is an aspiration across the devolved administrations to deliver net environmental gain in biodiversity across all land uses. However, the restoration of ecological communities has been led by practitioners, with relatively little evidence gathered as to how individual restoration projects link together spatially to enhance the resilience of communities. This consortium brings together leading academic ecologists with a public sector organisation and a charity at the forefront of practical restoration activities, to extract the evidence from past activities through a natural experiment, and test resilience through manipulations.
We intend to measure biodiversity, architecture and multifunctionality in ecosystems in different stages of transition from a degraded state, identify determinants and measures of complexity, and seek signals of emergent properties - especially resilience to perturbation. We have chosen grasslands and woodlands, being two major habitat types targeted for restoration programmes. Further to this we shall explore how approaches to accelerating re-integration of systems may affect emergent properties.
In summary, we propose to move restoration science forward, but considering complexity and resilience as fundamental aims for restoration projects, rather than attempting to re-create specific target ecosystems.
One widely adopted approach to securing net environmental gain is that of "ecological restoration". However, using specific natural and semi-natural ecosystems to define endpoints is increasingly contested, as target "pristine" states are hard to define, climate change is leading to a shifting baseline, and there is a need to restore ecosystems that are resilient to future pressures. We need a new paradigm for goal-seeking in ecological restoration which goes beyond reference systems, is agnostic as to prior assumptions of intactness, integrity and system "health", based on diagnostics of characteristics of functionally intact systems.
There is an aspiration across the devolved administrations to deliver net environmental gain in biodiversity across all land uses. However, the restoration of ecological communities has been led by practitioners, with relatively little evidence gathered as to how individual restoration projects link together spatially to enhance the resilience of communities. This consortium brings together leading academic ecologists with a public sector organisation and a charity at the forefront of practical restoration activities, to extract the evidence from past activities through a natural experiment, and test resilience through manipulations.
We intend to measure biodiversity, architecture and multifunctionality in ecosystems in different stages of transition from a degraded state, identify determinants and measures of complexity, and seek signals of emergent properties - especially resilience to perturbation. We have chosen grasslands and woodlands, being two major habitat types targeted for restoration programmes. Further to this we shall explore how approaches to accelerating re-integration of systems may affect emergent properties.
In summary, we propose to move restoration science forward, but considering complexity and resilience as fundamental aims for restoration projects, rather than attempting to re-create specific target ecosystems.
Publications
Bullock J
(2021)
Future restoration should enhance ecological complexity and emergent properties at multiple scales
in Ecography
Perring M
(2022)
O ut of sight, O ut of mind - but not O ut of scope: the need to consider ozone (O 3 ) in restoration science, policy, and practice
in Restoration Ecology
Ridding L
(2022)
Historical data reveal contrasting habitat amount relationships with plant biodiversity
in Ecography
Conti L
(2023)
Functional trait trade-offs define plant population stability across different biomes
in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Tanentzap A
(2023)
Trade-offs between passive and trophic rewilding for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning
in Biological Conservation
Alejandre EM
(2023)
Characterization Factors to Assess Land Use Impacts on Pollinator Abundance in Life Cycle Assessment.
in Environmental science & technology
Pettorelli N
(2023)
Restore or rewild? Implementing complementary approaches to bend the curve on biodiversity loss
in Ecological Solutions and Evidence
Priyadarshana TS
(2024)
Crop and landscape heterogeneity increase biodiversity in agricultural landscapes: A global review and meta-analysis.
in Ecology letters
Description | Big Chalk |
Organisation | Cotswolds AONB |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | Invited to be a partner in the Big Chalk partnership of the Chalk and Limestone based Protected Landscapes of southern England. Involved in steering group and in application to the NEIRF fund |
Collaborator Contribution | Advice on working, help with NEIRF propsal |
Impact | Ongoing collaboration for management & planning actions |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Aberdeen & District Beekeepers Association |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Dingwall & District Beekeepers Association |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Exploring the carbon sequestration potential of rewilding in the UK |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Policy practitioners, non-governmental organisations, and academics discussed current practices and future developments in monitoring landscape regeneration and whether the spectrum of benefits provided by rewilding is being captured and reported in a standardised manner so that policymakers have an accurate understanding of the benefits of rewilded landscapes including how much land is transitioning and where this is occurring |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/exploring-the-carbon-sequestration-potential-of-... |
Description | Future Challenges meeting Natural England |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Convening partners to consider the science to support transformative change for the twin challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change, led by NE |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/science-of-nature-recovery-future-challenges-tickets-681710242687 |
Description | Inverness-shire Beekeepers Association |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | National Trust Advisory Groups Conference, Birmingham |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
Results and Impact | PI Harris was asked to present a brief "provocation" to National Trust Staff, Volunteers and Supporters to challenge thinking about conservation activities within the Trust Regarding conservation and restoration in the face of climate change. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Nettlebed Farmers Association |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Education of farmers on the role of restoration in the context of supporting pollination services and approaches for integrating this into farming systems. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Rewilding metrics advisory group - Rewilding Britain |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
Results and Impact | To detail and agree a Rewilding Monitoring Framework to provide a standardised data collection model for rewilding that is pragmatic and accessible |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | South Chilterns BKA |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Talk at Natural England conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited presentation on nature recovery at the Natural England conference "The Science of Nature Recovery" |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://naturalengland.sym-online.com/registrationforms/nesc/closed.htm |
Description | Talk to Oxford University AGLE Initiative stakeholder goup |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Talk to AGILE Sprint on Nature based Solutions on how to assess biodiversity outcomes, to inform their monitoring framework |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Talk to Suffolk Naturalists Trust Rewilding meeting |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Talk on reconciling restoration with rewilding to a broad audience of conservation practitioners |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Thematic session "Is complexity important for ecosystem restoration" within the British Ecological Society conference, |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Members of the RestREco team proposed the thematic session for the 2022 BES conference, and this was selected. Summary of the session: This thematic session will bring together practitioners, academics and policy for a suite of talks on landscape restoration, unified by the overarching vision of the decreasing importance of past baselines and the shift to a paradigm of ecological complexity as a future baseline. Nb - a key audience for this event was academics, but this is not listed as an option above |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | West Sussex Beekeepers' Association |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | o Cambridge Beekeepers Association |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |