What does the recovery debt really measure?

Abstract

This paper scrutinizes the proposed new concept of 'recovery debt' and point out problems in conclusions resulting from the operationalization of the concept. The concept 'recovery debt', clearly a close relative of the ecosystem service debt, and gave it significance as 'the interim reduction of biodiversity and biogeochemical functions occurring during ecosystem recovery'. What the recovery debt really quantifies is the interim deviation rather than reduction of biodiversity and ecosystem functions from undisturbed state. These two are obviously very different things. The ambiguity seems to be reflected in the way the recovery debt values are constantly referred as 'reductions' or 'deficits' of biodiversity and functions. However, the reason why all the data appear as reductions is the inverse-transformation. Therefore, the contrast to previous studies showing that a-diversity does not change through time is hardly surprising given that in the cited studies no inverse-transformation was made.