College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, Hubei Engineering Technology Research Center for Forestry Information, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, PR China; Center of CEF/ESCER, Department of Biological Science, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada.
College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, Hubei Engineering Technology Research Center for Forestry Information, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, PR China.
Sci Total Environ. 2019 Feb 10;650(Pt 1):1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.08.320. Epub 2018 Aug 25.
Biodiversity is an important ecosystem characteristic, and is vital for maintaining ecosystem health and stability. However, biodiversity was often ignored in previous Chinese restoration planning and design due to its complex roles and the unclear mechanisms in providing human well-being. In order to evaluate the response of biodiversity to ecological restoration in terrestrial ecosystems, we assembled biodiversity in different metrics and different organisms and generated a large dataset comprised 2099 observations from 103 published studies to conduct a meta-analysis in China. Our results revealed that the biodiversity of restored ecosystem increased by 43% compared with degraded state, but it was difficult to recover to the natural level across the whole China. The gap between restored and natural ecosystems was about 13%. Ecological restorations have contributed not only to increasing vegetation coverage but also to improving soil environment and habitat quality. The recovery levels of vascular plant, soil microorganism and soil invertebrate were 30%, 73% and 48%, respectively. Biodiversity recovery would be better reflected in enhancing the structure feature (65%) such as plant height and density rather than the diversity feature (18%) such as diversity indices of Shannon and Simpson. Moreover, the response of biodiversity to ecological restoration varied with restoration actions (i.e., initial land use/cover type, restoration approach and restoration age), and the interaction effects among restoration actions significantly impacted biodiversity recovery. Passive approach performed better than active approach for biodiversity recovery. Meanwhile, the magnitude and direction of the impact of ecological restoration on biodiversity greatly altered with environmental conditions (i.e., climate condition and altitude). Our findings could facilitate priority setting and selection of treatment methods for biodiversity recovery during ecological restoration planning and assessment to ensure high effectiveness and sustainability.
生物多样性是生态系统的重要特征，对维持生态系统健康和稳定至关重要。然而，由于生物多样性在提供人类福祉方面的复杂作用和机制尚不清楚，在过去的中国恢复规划和设计中往往被忽视。为了评估生物多样性对陆地生态系统生态恢复的响应，我们综合了不同指标和不同生物的生物多样性，并从 103 项已发表的研究中生成了一个包含 2099 个观测值的大型数据集，在中国进行了荟萃分析。研究结果表明，与退化状态相比，恢复后的生态系统的生物多样性增加了 43%，但在整个中国范围内很难恢复到自然水平。恢复后的生态系统与自然生态系统之间的差距约为 13%。生态恢复不仅有助于增加植被覆盖，还有助于改善土壤环境和栖息地质量。维管束植物、土壤微生物和土壤无脊椎动物的恢复水平分别为 30%、73%和 48%。生物多样性的恢复将更好地体现在增强结构特征（65%），如植物高度和密度，而不是多样性特征（18%），如香农和辛普森多样性指数。此外，生物多样性对生态恢复的响应因恢复措施（即初始土地利用/覆盖类型、恢复方法和恢复年龄）而异，恢复措施之间的相互作用效应对生物多样性恢复有显著影响。被动方法在生物多样性恢复方面比主动方法表现更好。同时，生态恢复对生物多样性的影响的幅度和方向随着环境条件（即气候条件和海拔高度）的变化而发生很大变化。本研究结果可以为生态恢复规划和评估中的生物多样性恢复确定优先事项和选择处理方法提供参考，以确保高成效和可持续性。
