Restoration ecology meets design-engineering: Mimicking emergent traits to restore feedback-driven ecosystems.
Sci Total Environ
; 902: 166460, 2023 Dec 01.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37611724
Ecosystems shaped by habitat-modifying organisms such as reefs, vegetated coastal systems and peatlands, provide valuable ecosystem services, such as carbon storage and coastal protection. However, they are declining worldwide. Ecosystem restoration is a key tool for mitigating these losses but has proven failure-prone, because ecosystem stability often hinges on self-facilitation generated by emergent traits from habitat modifiers. Emergent traits are not expressed by the single individual, but emerge at the level of an aggregation: a minimum patch-size or density-threshold must be exceeded to generate self-facilitation. Self-facilitation has been successfully harnessed for restoration by clumping transplanted organisms, but requires large amounts of often-limiting and costly donor material. Recent advancements highlight that kickstarting self-facilitation by mimicking emergent traits can similarly increase restoration success. Here, we provide a framework for combining expertise from ecologists, engineers and industrial product designers to transition from trial-and-error to emergent trait design-based, cost-efficient approaches to support large-scale restoration.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Ecosistema
/
Ecología
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Sci Total Environ
Año:
2023
Tipo del documento:
Article
Pais de publicación:
Países Bajos