RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The recovery of plant community composition following passive restoration across spatial scales
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.04.14.488351
DO 10.1101/2022.04.14.488351
A1 Emma Ladouceur
A1 Forest Isbell
A1 Adam T. Clark
A1 W. Stanley Harpole
A1 Peter B. Reich
A1 G. David Tilman
A1 Jonathan M. Chase
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/09/22/2022.04.14.488351.abstract
AB Human impacts have led to dramatic biodiversity change which can be highly scale-dependent across space and time. A primary means to manage these changes is via passive (here, the removal of disturbance) or active (management interventions) ecological restoration. The recovery of biodiversity, following the removal of disturbance is often incomplete relative to some kind of reference target. The magnitude of recovery of ecological systems following disturbance depend on the landscape matrix, as well as the temporal and spatial scales at which biodiversity is measured.We measured the recovery of biodiversity and species composition over 27 years in 17 temperate grasslands abandoned after agriculture at different points in time, collectively forming a chronosequence since abandonment from one to eighty years. We compare these abandoned sites with known agricultural land-use histories to never-disturbed sites as relative benchmarks. We specifically measured aspects of diversity at the local plot-scale (α-scale, 0.5m2) and site-scale (γ-scale, 10m2), as well as the within-site heterogeneity (β-diversity) and among-site variation in species composition (turnover and nestedness).At our α-scale, sites recovering after agricultural abandonment only had 70% of the plant species richness (and ∼30% of the evenness), compared to never-ploughed sites. Within-site β-diversity recovered following agricultural abandonment to around 90% after 80 years. This effect, however, was not enough to lead to recovery at our γ-scale. Richness in recovering sites was ∼65% of that in remnant never-ploughed sites. The presence of species characteristic of the never disturbed sites increased in the recovering sites through time. Forb and legume cover declines in years since abandonment, relative to graminoid cover across sites.Synthesis. We found that, during the 80 years after agricultural abandonment, old-fields did not recover to the level of biodiversity in remnant never-ploughed sites at any scale. β-diversity recovered more than α-scale or γ-scales. Plant species composition recovered, but not completely, over time, and some species groups increased their cover more than others. Patterns of ecological recovery in degraded ecosystems across space and long time-scales can inform effective, targeted active restoration interventions and perhaps, lead to better outcomes.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.