Ecological Restoration Vocab

Ecological restoration

The process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed

Restoration ecology-

The branch of science that provides concepts, models, methodologies, and tools for the practice of ecological restoration. It also has benefits from direct observation of and participation in restoration practice.  

Biodiversity-

the variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat, a high level of which is usually considered to be important and desirable.

Ecosystem services-

Direct and indirect contributions of ecosystem to human well-being.

Reclamation-

Making severely degraded land fit for cultivation or a state for human use

Remediation

removing or detoxifying contaminants or excess nutrients from soil or water

Rehabilitation

A management activity, such as the removal or detoxification of contaminates or excess nutrients from soil and water, that aims to remove sources of degradation.

Degradation-

Human impacts that reduce biodiversity, simplify ecosystems, and diminish ecosystem services

Reference model (i.e., reference ecosystem)

Native ecosystem that serves as model for ecosystem restoration, informed by various sources of information/ sites

Natural regeneration (i.e., passive restoration)

approach to restoration that relies on spontaneous increases in biota without direct introduction after removal of degrading

Assisted regeneration (i.e., assisted natural regeneration)

restoration that focuses actively triggering natural regeneration capacity of biota remaining on site or nearby (ex. Removal of invasive species,)

Active restoration (i.e., active revegetation)

A restoration approach with extensive human intervention; biota recovery depends largely on human actions.

Reconstruction (i.e., de novo restoration)

the creation of an ecosystem on a site where the original ecosystem has been so severely degraded or completely removed that natural recovery is unlikely. Rather than relying on existing biological or physical legacies, reconstruction involves intentionally rebuilding ecosystem structure, composition, and function

Biocultural Restoration

recognizes ecosystems and human cultures as interdependent systems. It seeks to restore ecological function alongside cultural practices, values, knowledge, and relationships to place

Cultural ecosystem (i.e., traditional cultural ecosystem

Ecosystems that have developed under the joint influence of natural processes and human imposed organization to provide community composition, ecosystem structure and ecosystem processes more useful to human exploitation

Rewilding

restoring an area of land to its uncultivated or “wild” state- especially with reference to the reintroduction of species of wild animals that have been exterminated so as to restore the processes that they affected

Forest and Landscape Restoration

is a long-term, process-based approach to restoring ecological integrity and functionality across deforested or degraded forests and the broader landscapes in which they are embedded.

Mitigation

series of actions taken to minimize environmental damages of development or a species of concern, also can be reduction of greenhouse emissions

Baseline inventory

current biotic and abiotic elements of site prior to ecological restoration- includes compositional, structural, functional attributes

Novel ecosystem

nonhistorical or novel species assemblages due to anthropogenic environmental changes, land conversions, species invasions, extinctions, or combination of these factors

Historical fidelity

Historical fidelity is the commitment to restoring ecosystems to closely resemble their historical reference conditions in composition, structure, and function

Stakeholder

All people and organizations that are involved in or affected by an action or policy, may be directly or indirectly involved in the decision-making process

Monitoring

systematic and orderly gathering of data over a period of time so as to evaluate whether specific project objectives are achieved

Adaptive Management

Ongoing process for improving management practices by applying knowledge learned through previously employed practices to improve current and future projects

Shifting Baselines

Phenomenon where successive generation assumes that diminished biological state is the norm- doesn’t recognize that the state was altered by human activity

ecological succession

gradual process by which species composition and structure of a biological community change over time (pioneer species to other species)

community assembly

process by which different species come together to form ecological communities- influenced by species interaction, dispersal (arrival, establishment, interaction of community)

Disturbance Regime

pattern, frequency, and timing of disturbance events that are characteristic of ecosystem over a period (fires, etc. )

Ecological Resilience

capacity of ecosystem to absorb disturbance, reorganize, and recover its structure, functions, and processes without shifting into different state

Ecological Resistance

ability of ecosystem to withstand disturbance without undergoing significant change

Alternative States

alternative ecosystem states that persist at a particular spatial extent and temporal scale

Hysteresis

ecosystem does not return to original state even after disturbance or stressor is removed- remains in alternative state

Historical Contingency (sensu community ecology)

ecosystems future and current community structure depend on past events, conditions, and species arrival order, especially what is possible during recovery

Facilitation

species interaction in which one species benefits and the other neither benefit or is harmed

metapopulation

a set of partially isolated subpopulations of a given species. Long-term survival of the species depends on a shifting balance between local extinctions and recolonizations

fragmentation

loss of connectivity and functional isolation of a site

connectivity

measure of how well a landscape facilitates the movement of organisms and the flow of natural processes

edge effects

change in population or community structures that occur at the boundary (edge) of two or more habitats

buffer strips

- narrow strips of vegetation adjacent to wetlands or rivers that serve to filter sediments and pollutants from nearby land uses and provide flood protection services and riparian habitat

corridor (sensu landscape ecology)

a strip of habitat that connects two or more larger patches of habitat facilitating the movement of species and the flow of ecological processes that would otherwise be halted by fragmentation

stepping stone (sensu landscape ecology)

a small discontinuous patch of habitat that acts as an intermediate stopover for species moving between larger more isolated core areas

matrix permeability

the degree to which the “non-habitat” areas (the matrix) allow or impede the movement of organisms between high-quality habitat patches

Habitat heterogeneity

variety and relative abundance of different habitat types, structural elements, and environmental conditions within a specific area

nurse plant

a plant that facilitates the establishment of other plants, by various mechanisms such as attracting seed dispersers, increasing nutrient availability, or amelioration stressful microclimatic conditions

applied nucleation

restoration strategy that involves planting small, dense clusters of trees or shrubs to serve as focal points for natural recovery, rather than planting an entire site at once- mimics natural process of succession

. Framework species method

An ecological restoration strategy that involves reintroduction of the minimum number of species required to reinstate ecosystem structure and processes and to enable recolonization by additional species from adjacent areas. In forest ecosystems, it often combines the planting of several species that attract fauna and are from different stages of succession.

Afforestation (vs. reforestation

the process of establishing a forest on land that has not been forested for a very long time or perhaps never at all

Hydrological regime

- the timing and magnitude of water-flow patterns in aquatic systems

hydrograph

a graph showing the rate of water flow (discharge) over time at a specific point in a river or wetland

base flow

the background level of water in a stream or river that persists even during long periods without rain- portion of streamflow that comes from groundwater seepage rather than direct surface runoff

floodplain

The region of low-lying land adjacent to a river, typically composed of high nutrient sediments and subject to regular flooding in the absence of human intervention

flow regime

the pattern of a river’s flow over weeks, months, and years, not just over the period of a single storm event

Total Daily Maximum (TDM)

pollution budget defined under the Clean Water Act to identity how much of a specific substance a water body can handle before it becomes ecologically dysfunctional

Non-point source pollution (vs. point source pollution

pollutants that enter the water, air, or soil from diffuse sources, such as the case of excess fertilizer runoff from agricultural fields entering a river

Beaver Dam Analog (BDA)

manmade structures designed to mimic the form and function of a natural beaver dam

Stage zero restoration

holistic approach that moves away from simply fixing a single river channel and instead focuses on restoring the entire valley bottom (stage 0 is pre disturbance)