Restoration ecology meets design-engineering: Mimicking emergent traits to restore feedback-driven ecosystems

Ralph J.M. Temmink*, Christine Angelini, Martijn Verkuijl, Tjisse van der Heide

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

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.
Original languageEnglish
Article number166460
Number of pages11
JournalScience of the Total Environment
Volume902
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2023

Keywords

  • Restoration
  • Facilitation
  • Positive feedbacks
  • Trait-based
  • Engineering
  • Design

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