Top Ten

Restoration ecology is faced with several challenges. It can no longer simply focus on how to restore a degraded area to its natural state or function. It needs to integrate the dynamic nature of ecosystems into restoration management and needs to accept that practices need to be adapted to incorporate impending environmental changes (e.g., enhancing response diversity). Restoration ecology will need to work with stakeholders and create public awareness to implement sustainable projects. As a field, it will have to learn how to incorporate products from the economic markets such as ecosystem services and payments for ecosystem services to advance restoration projects, as well as participate in the execution of mitigation projects to prevent the implementation of unsustainable projects. The following 10 papers provide some great information and examples of how to address the above challenges.

1. Hobbs, R.J. and V.A. Cramer. 2008. Restoration ecology: interventionist approaches for restoring and maintaining ecosystem function in the face of rapid environmental change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 33: 39-61.

2. Seastedt, T.R., R.J. Hobbs, and K.N. Suding. 2008. Management of novel ecosystems are novel approaches required? Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6: 547-553.

3. Burger, J. 2008. Environmental management: integrating ecological evaluation, remediation, restoration, natural resource damage assessment and long-term stewardship on contaminated lands. Science of the Total Environment 400: 6-19.

4. Jackson, S.T. and R.J. Hobbs. 2009. Ecological restoration in the light of ecological history. Science 325: 567-569.

5. Bradley, B.A., M. Oppenheimer, and D.S. Wilcove. 2009. Climate change and plant invasions: restoration opportunities ahead? Global Change Biology 15: 1511-1521.

6. Tallis, H., R. Goldman, M. Uhl, and B. Brosi. 2009. Integrating conservation and development in the field: implementing ecosystem service projects. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7: 12-20.

7. Suding, K.N., et al. 2008. Scaling environmental change through the community level: a trait-based response and effect framework for plants. Global Change Biology 14: 1125-1140. ***additional paper not on list

8. Armstrong, D.P. and P.J. Seddon. 2008. Directions in reintroduction biology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23: 20-25. ***additional paper not on list

9. Wendland, K.J., M. Honzak, R.Portela, B. Vitale, S.Rubinoff, and J. Randrianarisoa. 2010. Targeting and implementing payments for ecosystem services: opportunities for bundling biodiversity conservation with carbon and water services in Madagascar. Ecological Economics 69: 2093-2107. ***additional paper not on list

10. Nicol, S.C., and H.P. Possingham. 2010. Should metapopulation restoration strategies increase patch area or number of patches? Ecological Applications 20: 566-581.