Restoration actions in marine ecosystems: a global analysis

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1 Department of Biological and Environmental Science and Technology, University of Salento - CoNISMa, Lecce, Italy
2 Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnnologie Biologiche ed Ambientali, Università del Salento - CoNISMA, Lecce, Italy
3 UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, United Kingdom
4 Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Heraklion, Greece
5 IMAR-UAz, Instituto do Mar Centro da Universidade dos Açores, Azores, Portugal
6 Environmental and Marine Biology Faculty of Science and Engineering, Åbo Akademi University, Turku/Åbo, Finland
7 University of Barcelona, Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Barcelona, Spain
8 Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell’Ambiente, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy
9 Institute of Aquatic Ecology Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Girona, Girona, Spain
10 Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University Oldenburg, Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, Oldenburg, Germany
11 Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell’Ambiente, Universita Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy
12 CSIC, Institut Ciències del Mar, Barcelona, Spain
13 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
14 Estonian Marine Institute, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
15 Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell’Ambiente, Università di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
16 Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Eraklion, Greece
17 Stazione Zoologica di Napoli, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.26799v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Marine Biology, Environmental Impacts
Keywords
Active restoration, Marine habitats, Systematic review, Habitat loss, Rehabilitation, Coastal habitats, MERCES
Copyright
© 2018 Fraschetti 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
Fraschetti S, Guarnieri G, Papa L, McOwen C, Papadopoulou N, Bilan M, Boström C, Capdevila P, Carugati L, Cebrian E, Dailianis T, De Leo F, Fiorentino D, Gagnon K, Gambi C, Garrabou J, Gerovasileiou V, Hereu B, Kipson S, Kotta J, Ledoux J, Linares C, Martin J, Medrano A, Montero-Serra I, Morato T, Pusceddu A, Sevastou K, Smith C, Verdura J, Danovaro R. 2018. Restoration actions in marine ecosystems: a global analysis. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26799v1

Abstract

A review of 573 studies on active restoration actions in the marine environment, published in the last 25 years, was carried out at global scale. We assessed how, where, at which spatial and temporal scales and under which socio-ecological settings restoration studies have been carried out, from very shallow to deep sea habitats. Results show that restoration efforts across habitats are increasing, especially in seagrasses and coral reefs, but never approached at ecosystem level. Targets, methods, response variables and standards are still very heterogeneous. Of the factors considered in the review, habitat, human impact intensity, realm and methods of restoration were found to be good determinant of restoration success. Short project duration (one-two years), small restoration areas (< 1 ha), lack of controls and knowledge of baselines are still a limit for deriving generalities. Finally, restorations rarely consider future challenges linked to global change this impairing long-term success stories. Restoration science needs more robust approaches leading to the development of best practices (e.g. protocols, monitoring of the effects, reasons for failure) to be applied at spatial and temporal scales so as to answer to present and future disturbance regimes.

Author Comment

“This is an abstract which has been accepted for the WCMB”