Actively restored ecosystems as a refuge for biological diversity: evidence from a marine foundational species
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Conservation Biology, Ecology, Marine Biology
- Keywords
- biodiversity, grazers, restoration, Zostera marina, seagrass, functional traits, eelgrass
- Copyright
- © 2015 Lefcheck et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. Actively restored ecosystems as a refuge for biological diversity: evidence from a marine foundational species. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1346v3 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1346v3
Abstract
As nearshore ecosystems are increasingly degraded by human activities, active restoration is a critical strategy in ensuring the continued provision of goods and services by coastal habitats. After being absent for nearly six decades, over 1800 ha of the foundational species eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) has been successfully reestablished in the coastal bays of the mid-western Atlantic, USA, but nothing is known about the recovery of associated animal communities. Here, we determine the patterns and drivers of functional recovery in epifaunal invertebrates associated with the restored eelgrass habitat from 2001-2013. After less than a decade, the invertebrate community in the restored bed was richer, more even, and exhibited greater variation in functional traits than a nearby reference bed. Analysis of a suite of environmental and physical variables using random forests revealed these differences were primarily due to the increasing area and density of eelgrass directly attributable to ongoing restoration efforts. Based on analysis of functional traits, we propose that the rapid life histories of constituent organisms may have played a key role in their successful recovery. We also suggest that the diverse epifaunal communities observed may have positive consequences for continued restoration success through the removal of fouling epiphytes from eelgrass blades. Given that restored eelgrass now make up 32% of total seagrass cover in the mid-Atlantic coastal bays, this restoration may foster regional biodiversity by providing new and pristine habitat, particularly given the general decline of existing eelgrass in this region, and globally.
Author Comment
This is a updated version with minor revisions for submission to a peer-reviewed journal.