Restoration as experiment

Abstract

Large-scale ecological restoration generally employs un-replicated trial and error to re-create habitats destroyed or degraded by human activity. Trial and error follows a management plan that employs the "best available practice" for each habitat type; adaptive management reflecting experience subsequently corrects errors. The process is slow because each restoration is often well-advanced before adjustments are attempted. Rare are simultaneous replicated trials during the initial restoration or corrective process. "Systemic experimental restoration" would design replicated planting or management contrasts at the outset of large-scale public and commercial restorations. Alternative treatments create mosaics of different manifestations of a community within a mosaic of habitat types. Replicated contrasts within habitats allow the inference of cause and effect of success and failure on scales of communities, landscapes and ecosystems. For the long-term development of restoration ecology as a science, seminatural communities of known contrasting histories will be important to encourage managers or investigators to create additional projects beyond explicit management or scientific objectives of an initial management plan. By consciously, integrating heterogeneity throughout restoration management plans, systemic mosaics of treatments within and between habitats, would facilitate multiple habitat responses to unpredictable changes in climate and land use.