Temmink, R.J.M.; Angelini, C.; Verkuijl, M.; van der Heide, T. (2023). Restoration ecology meets design-engineering: Mimicking emergent traits to restore feedback-driven ecosystems. Sci. Total Environ. 902: 166460. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166460
In: Science of the Total Environment. Elsevier: Amsterdam. ISSN 0048-9697; e-ISSN 1879-1026, more
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.
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