Environment Agency, Red Kite House, Howbery Park, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford OX10 8BD, United Kingdom.
Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, Ryton Gardens, Wolston Lane, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry CV8 3LG, United Kingdom.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 Mar 15;618:961-970. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.014. Epub 2017 Nov 7.
Rivers and their floodplains have been severely degraded with increasing global activity and expenditure undertaken on restoration measures to address the degradation. Early restoration schemes focused on habitat creation with mixed ecological success. Part of the lack of ecological success can be attributed to the lack of effective monitoring. The current focus of river restoration practice is the restoration of physical processes and functioning of systems. The ecological assessment of restoration schemes may need to follow the same approach and consider whether schemes restore functional diversity in addition to taxonomic diversity. This paper examines whether two restoration schemes, on lowland UK rivers, restored macroinvertebrate taxonomic and functional (trait) diversity and relates the findings to the Bradshaw's model of ecological restoration. The study schemes are considered a success in terms of restoring physical processes, longitudinal connectivity and the resulting habitat composition. However, the rehabilitation of macroinvertebrate community structure and function was limited and inconsistent, varying over time, depending on the restoration measure applied and the taxonomic or functional index considered. Resampling of species pools at each site revealed a role for functional redundancy, meaning that increases in functional diversity are more difficult to achieve than outcomes based on taxonomic analyses. Our results highlight the usefulness of applying functional traits alongside taxonomic indices in evaluating river restoration projects.
河流及其洪泛区已经严重退化，随着全球活动的增加以及为解决退化问题而采取的恢复措施的支出，退化情况也在加剧。早期的恢复计划侧重于生境创造，其生态成功具有混合性。部分生态恢复计划缺乏成效，这归因于缺乏有效的监测。目前河流恢复实践的重点是恢复系统的物理过程和功能。恢复计划的生态评估可能需要遵循相同的方法，并考虑方案是否除了分类多样性之外，还恢复了功能多样性。本文研究了英国低地的两个河流恢复计划是否恢复了大型无脊椎动物的分类和功能（特征）多样性，并将调查结果与布拉德肖的生态恢复模型联系起来。就恢复物理过程、纵向连通性和由此产生的栖息地组成而言，研究方案被认为是成功的。然而，大型无脊椎动物群落结构和功能的恢复是有限和不一致的，随着时间的推移而变化，这取决于所应用的恢复措施以及所考虑的分类或功能指数。对每个地点的物种库进行重采样揭示了功能冗余的作用，这意味着功能多样性的增加比基于分类分析的结果更难实现。我们的研究结果强调了在评估河流恢复项目时，应用功能特征与分类指数相结合的有用性。
