Ecosystem Dynamics and Diversity Quiz

Ecological Restoration Overview

• This unit reviews ecosystem characteristics and components, emphasizing inclusivity (soil, plants, and animals).
• Processes of ecosystem formation are examined, differentiating between natural and anthropogenic influences.
• Characteristics of degraded landscapes are analyzed.
• Restoration definition, differentiated from rehabilitation and reclamation, is discussed, including its objectives and land use.
• The work process within restoration ecology is outlined.

Ecosystem

• An ecosystem is a system encompassing living organisms (biota) and the non-living environment (abiotic) that supports them, along with their interactions.
• Examples of abiotic components include water, mineral content, and soil.

Ecosystem Formation

• Ecosystems develop through natural processes (autogenic) and external forces (allogenic).
• Autogenic processes are internal to the ecosystem, and allogenic is caused by external factors.
• Plant establishment and succession (environmental modification by plants) drive ecosystem development.
• Key factors influencing ecosystem composition include climate, organisms, topography, parent material, and time.

Ecosystem Structure

• Ecosystem structure includes the physical arrangement of biotic and abiotic components.
• Biotic components, like density, strata, dispersion, and species composition, are considered.
• Abiotic components, such as down woody material, rocks, topography (slope and aspect), and soil nutrient variation, are important.

Ecosystem Function

• Ecosystems perform essential functions such as water filtration, pollination, soil stability maintenance, and oxygen production.

Functional Groups

• Essential groups within an ecosystem include primary producers, herbivores, carnivores, decomposers, nitrogen fixers, and pollinators.
• All these groups are necessary for an ecosystem to function and maintain itself.

Redundancy

• Redundancy in an ecosystem refers to the presence of multiple species fulfilling the same functional role.
• This redundancy allows the ecosystem to withstand stress and disturbance by providing alternative species if one is lost, enhancing its resilience.

Ecosystem Diversity

• Ecosystem diversity encompasses ecological, genetic, and organismal diversity.
• Ecological diversity includes habitats, niches, and populations.
• Genetic diversity focuses on nucleotides, genes, and chromosomes.
• Organismal diversity encompasses species, genera, families, orders, and phyla.

Ecosystem Complexity

• Ecosystems are complex systems with intricate and interconnected interactions between various components.

Ecosystem Dynamics

• Ecosystems continuously change, with functions, structures, and biodiversity evolving over time.
• This is influenced by factors like weather conditions, moisture levels, energy inputs/outputs, biomass accumulation, biotic component lifecycle, and disturbance events.

Disturbance

• Disturbance is a discrete event that alters ecosystems, communities, or populations by changing resources and substrates.
• Key features include distinctions between biotic and abiotic causes, and differing scales and frequencies of disturbances (natural vs. human-induced).
• Natural disturbances include abiotic factors (e.g., fire, wind, flooding, ice, drought) and biotic factors (e.g., competition, diseases, predation).

Degradation Definitions

• Degradation encompasses gradual changes reducing ecological health (Gradual), acute changes impairing functions (Damaged), loss of ecological structure and function (Destroyed), and conversion to a new land use (Transformed).

Characteristics of Degraded Landscapes

• Key characteristics observed in degraded landscapes include reduced biodiversity, reduced plant biomass, increased litter, decreased primary productivity, and reduced energy flow.
• Degradation is also marked by decreased soil fertility, high fragmentation, and loss of desirable vegetation.

Definitions of Restoration Ecology

• Restoration ecology involves actions that return an ecosystem to a previous condition or to some historical state.
• Different definitions exist, including the general term and the definition in Alberta.

Restoration

• This refers to an attempt to return something to a former state, particularly an ecosystem.
• It encompasses re-establishing structural, functional, and diverse nature ecosystems.

Ecological Restoration

• The process that assists an ecosystem's recovery following degradation, damaging, or destruction.

Restoration Ecology Science

• Restoration ecology is founded on concepts, models, methodologies, and tools that support practitioners.

Restoration in Practice

• Ecological restoration requires significant knowledge of multiple factors, including site history, hydrological characteristics, population genetics and ecology, food webs, ecosystem characteristics, as well as human factors like motives, cultural values, and economic realities.
• Implementation varies based on various constraints, including the extent and duration of disturbance, and available resources.
• This can range from simple interventions (e.g., replanting) to complex actions (e.g., soil replacement).

Conceptual Model for Ecosystem Degradation and Restoration

• A model illustrating the relationship between physical/biological modifications and ecosystem health.
• This model highlights the need for modification at the biotic and abiotic levels to restore degraded ecosystems.

Restoration Spectrum

• Different examples (Last Mountain Lake, Grasslands National Park, Poplar River Mine) illustrate different approaches to restoration, encompassing mixing different species.

Reclamation

• Reclamation is focused on returning disturbed land to its original or an alternative productive use after a disturbance.
• It includes stabilization, contouring, maintenance, conditioning, and reconstruction of the land surface.

Reclamation and Restoration Procedures (e.g., Oil Sands Mining)

• This illustrates a specific example of the land-reclamation processes following mining activities.
• This involves stages like natural ecosystem removal, vegetation management, mining/refinery procedures, landform development, and long-term monitoring for stability and vegetation response.

Ecosystem Self-Regeneration

• Self-regeneration is examined as an important aspect in the restoration process.
• A concept that depicts degraded ecosystems having the ability to return to their natural state.

Terminology - Resistance and Resilience

• Resistance refers to maintaining functional attributes in the face of stress.
• Resilience is the capacity for an ecosystem to fully function after stress, relying on resistance and resilience.

Terminology - Rehabilitation, Mitigation, and Remediation

• Rehabilitation: improving a degraded state.
• Mitigation: minimizing, rectifying, reducing, eliminating a problem, often in terms of pollution or environmental damage.
• Remediation: the removal or elimination of pollution or contaminants from various environments.

Roles of Natural Disturbance

• Positive effects of natural disturbances include ecosystem renewal, natural selection, controlling undesirable species, increasing diversity.

Human Disturbance

• Human disturbance regimes can significantly alter ecosystems, potentially causing ecosystem response differences.
• Disturbance severity often depends on its frequency and intensity

Restoration - End Goal and Process

• Restoration is understanding how to achieve an end-goal as well as implementing the procedures to achieve it.
• Restoration action may require a systematic approach like Adaptive management, including initial assessment, design, implementation, and monitoring.

Adaptive Management

• This iterative approach to decision-making accounts for uncertainty and progresses via monitoring.
• It's described as learning to manage through managing to learn.

Adaptive Management Cycle

• A step-wise cycle for adaptive management including defining the problem, planning goals, selecting/testing actions, implementing and monitoring outcomes, and subsequently evaluating and reacting to the data gathered.

Features of Adaptive Management

• This iterative, data-driven approach considers uncertainty, progressively learning from restoration experiences, using the best management practices, and continually reevaluating and monitoring outcomes.

Two Types of Adaptive Management (Active & Passive)

• Active adaptive management involves experimentation with various strategies and treatment approaches.
• Passive adaptive management focuses on observation and evaluation of single treatments to identify suitable approaches.

Uncertainty in Restoration

• Restoration is often limited by uncertainty, due in part to incomplete knowledge or limitations of controllability when dealing with complex ecosystems.

Decision-Making Tools (e.g., SWOT Analysis, Decision Matrix)

• SWOT analyses (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats) aid strategic decision making by visually evaluating pros and cons in the face of uncertainties and constraints.
• Decision matrices provide a quantitative system for evaluating options based on multiple criteria, often ranking and scoring different possibilities.

Example Plant Selection Steps

• Establishing a plant selection process with detailed steps including listing desired plants, identifying general concerns, utilizing a matrix for comparing plants, and including detailed information.

Test your knowledge on key concepts related to ecosystems, including species redundancy, biodiversity, and ecosystem processes. This quiz explores the interactions and components that define ecosystems and how they respond to disturbances over time.