Anthropogenic ecosystem disturbance and the recovery debt

David Moreno-Mateos (1, 2, 3) , Edward B. Barbier (4) , Peter C. Jones (5) , Holly P. Jones (6, 5) , James Aronson (7, 8) , Jose A. Lopez-Lopez (9) , Michelle L. Mccrackin (10) , Paula Meli (1, 11) , Daniel Montoya (12, 13) , Jose M. Rey Benayas (14, 1)

1 Fundación Internacional para la Restauración de Ecosistemas
2 Ikerbasque - Basque Foundation for Science
3 Parque Tecnológico UPV
4 Department of Economics and Finance
5 Department of Biological Sciences
6 Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy
7 CEFE - Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive
8 Missouri Botanical Garden
9 School of Social and Community Medicine
10 Baltic Sea Centre
11 Natura y Ecosistemas Mexicanos AC
12 Agroécologie [Dijon]
13 SETE - Station d'écologie théorique et expérimentale
14 Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida

Ecosystem recovery from anthropogenic disturbances, either without human intervention or assisted by ecological restoration, is increasingly occurring worldwide. As ecosystems progress through recovery, it is important to estimate any resulting deficit in biodiversity and functions. Here we use data from 3,035 sampling plots worldwide, to quantify the interim reduction of biodiversity and functions occurring during the recovery process (that is, the 'recovery debt'). Compared with reference levels, recovering ecosystems run annual deficits of 46-51% for organism abundance, 27-33% for species diversity, 32-42% for carbon cycling and 31-41% for nitrogen cycling. Our results are consistent across biomes but not across degrading factors. Our results suggest that recovering and restored ecosystems have less abundance, diversity and cycling of carbon and nitrogen than 'undisturbed' ecosystems, and that even if complete recovery is reached, an interim recovery debt will accumulate. Under such circumstances, increasing the quantity of less-functional ecosystems through ecological restoration and offsetting are inadequate alternatives to ecosystem protection.

Mots clés: land-use; biodiversity; metaanalysis; 21st-century; services; europe; policy; scale

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

David Moreno-Mateos, Edward B. Barbier, Peter C. Jones, Holly P. Jones, James Aronson, et al.. Anthropogenic ecosystem disturbance and the recovery debt. Nature Communications, 2017, 8, pp.1-6. ⟨10.1038/ncomms14163⟩. ⟨hal-01604342⟩