Restoration Ecology

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Restoration Ecology

• ESM 217
• Tuesday-Thursday 1100-1215 am
• 1424 Bren Hall
• Hunter Lenihan
• Bren School
• Spring 2006

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Course format

• Areas of focus
• Conservation through ecosystem restoration
• Restoration as a means of exploring ecology
• Case studies
• Integrate theory with practice

• Objectives
• Participate in discussions read
• Field research - proposal, report, oral
  presentation
• Review of ecological concepts essential to
  restoration
• Have fun

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Guest speakers to present original restoration
research
Case studies

• UCSB Biodiversity and Restoration Center -
  Student project ideas
• Lenihan - Marine population and habitat
  restoration
• Dr. Tom Dudley - Biocontrol of exotic plants
• Dr. Carl Legleiter - River rehabilitation
• Dr. Mark Page Wetland mitigation reassembly
• Dr. Dan Reed Kelp forest recovery
• Dr. Carol Blanchette- Eel grass restoration

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Scholarship
Course work

• Understanding your ecosystem
• Review of ecological theory and concepts
• Synthesis of information from other courses
  sources
• Experimental and sampling design

• Application of scholarship
• gt50 time dedicated to field projects (or review
  lit.)
• Data analysis
• Written presentation

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Definitions
Ecological restoration is the process of
repairing damage caused by humans to the
diversity and dynamics of indigenous ecosystems
(Society for Ecological Restoration)
What is restoration ecology?
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Some history of restoration ecology
1935 Aldo Leopold and the CCC replanted
tallgrass prairie on warn out farmland near the
Univ. of Wisconsin
Critical moment in conservation movement The
time has come for science to busy itself with the
earth itself. The first step is to reconstruct a
sample of what we had to begin with
Critical moment in ecological science novel
combination of agriculture and ecology which
sewed the seed that has grown into the science
and art of ecological restoration
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Leopold recognized two major values of
restoration As an environmental technology as
a technique for basic ecological research
Simple idea The most valuable and powerful
ways of studying something is to attempt to
reassemble it, repair it, and to adjust it so
that it works properly
Bradshaw The acid test of our understanding of
ecosystems is not whether we can take systems to
bits on paperbut whether we can put them back
together in practice and make them work
Restoration as a first step towards a better
relationship with and deeper understanding of the
environment and a means of testing ecological
theory and concepts
A synthesis of theory and practice
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Ideas, goals, values, and means of restoration
ecology
Ecological ideas front and center

• Much of restoration involves returning species to
  an area

• Often involves elimination of exotic species

• Can require large-scale landscape alteration

• Relies on monitoring, surveys, experiments, and
  modeling

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Ecological ideas to explore in restoration

• Links between ecology, conservation biology, and
  environmental management
• Species interactions, disturbance, recruitment,
  etc.
• Community succession and assembly rules
• Ecosystem engineers
• Biomanipulation
• Phytoremediation
• Restoration scaling
• Economic evaluation

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• Restoration Goals
• What should we attempt to achieve in restoration?
  
• The return of a degraded ecosystem to a
  pre-disturbed state or to just any healthy
  structure?

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Restoration values

• What is the comparative value of undisturbed and
  restored
• ecosystems?

• If we succeed in completely restoring a damaged
  ecosystem to a predisturbed structure, have we
  recovered all the value lost through damage?

If yes?
If no?

• Should we wholeheartedly embrace restoration as a
  new paradigm for environmental management or
  environmentalism?
• Or would an ambivalent attitude be more
  appropriate?

• What is natural and wild?

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Restoration means

• What are acceptable means for achieving
  restoration goals?
• How invasive can the means be?

• Under what circumstances is it permissible to
  cause death to achieve the goals of restoration?

• transportation of reintroduced species
• husbandry of at-risk species
• eradication of exotic species
• introduction of predators

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A chance to explore and apply what you have
learned at Bren
LETS HAVE FUN!