Does rewilding improve ecosystem resilience?: a soundscape perspective

野化能否提高生态系统的复原力？：声音景观的视角

• 批准号: 2883290
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Stirling
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2883290
• 关键词: Does; rewilding; improve; ecosystem; resilience

Understanding why some ecosystems appear more resilient to perturbation than others isof fundamental importance if we wish to avoid biodiversity collapse and maintain ahabitable planet.There is a rapidly growing shift towards low intensity, large scale, semi-passiverestoration approaches, such as rewilding, that seek to restore ecological processesrather than deliver pre-defined structure-based outcomes. Within the overall context ofrewilding harnessing the restorative power of beavers through their habitat engineeringactivities is becoming increasingly commonplace in Britain, with most English countiesnow having enclosed beaver projects either planned or in operation, a situationunimaginable a decade ago. In Scotland Eurasian beavers have occurred again in thewild for about 20 years with their population now approaching 2000 animals and withplans to translocate them more widely. The ecological benefits that stem from dambuilding and the other engineering activities of beavers are, in some senses, wellestablished, with a catalogue of studies demonstrating increases in birds, plants,amphibians, invertebrates and bats [1]. These complement the ability of beaver ponds tointercept pollutants and improve downstream water quality, attenuate flow peaks andmitigate the disturbance effects of drought and wildfires [2]. However, the picture isincomplete since many indicator biological taxa are studied in isolation while the benefitsof beavers most likely do not accrue evenly and are sensitive to the surroundinglandscape matrix. The degree of subsidy from aquatic to terrestrial systems and how thisvaries in relation to beaver activity, also remains poorly understood, despite its potentialimportance to higher trophic levels when other resources are depleted [3]. Finally,although beaver ponds seem to provide a stabilising influence in the face of extremeevents, it is unknown whether there is an accompanying ecological benefit in terms ofenhanced resilience of populations, communities or ecosystem functions. The solution tosome of these questions has remained elusive in part because traditional monitoringapproaches are invasive and costly and therefore cannot be deployed at the spatial andtemporal frequency that is desirable.

如果我们希望避免生物多样性崩溃并维持可居住的地球，那么理解为什么某些生态系统比其他生态系统更能抵御干扰就具有根本的重要性。目前正在迅速转向低强度、大规模、半被动的生态恢复方法，如野化，这种方法寻求恢复生态过程，而不是提供预先定义的基于结构的结果。在英国，通过海狸的栖息地工程活动来利用海狸的恢复能力变得越来越普遍，大多数英国县现在都有计划或正在实施的封闭海狸项目，这在十年前是不可想象的。在苏格兰，欧亚海狸在野外再次出现了大约20年，它们的数量现在接近2000只，并计划将它们更广泛地转移。从某种意义上说，海狸的水坝建设和其他工程活动产生的生态效益是明确的，一系列研究表明鸟类，植物，两栖动物，无脊椎动物和蝙蝠的数量增加[1]。这些补充了海狸池塘拦截污染物和改善下游水质的能力，减弱了流量峰值并减轻了干旱和野火的干扰影响[2]。然而，由于许多指示生物分类群是孤立地研究的，而海狸的利益很可能不会均匀地累积，并且对周围的景观矩阵很敏感，因此情况并不完整。从水生系统到陆地系统的补贴程度以及河狸活动如何变化，也仍然知之甚少，尽管当其他资源耗尽时，它对更高的营养水平具有潜在的重要性[3]。最后，尽管海狸池塘似乎在极端事件面前提供了稳定的影响，但尚不清楚是否会在增强种群、社区或生态系统功能的弹性方面产生随之而来的生态效益。其中一些问题的解决方案仍然难以捉摸，部分原因是传统的监测方法是侵入性的和昂贵的，因此不能以理想的空间和时间频率部署。