Summary restoration ecology final exam study guide

Restoration Ecology 2025 Final Exam Study Guide
SEMESTER-LONG THEMES AND CONCEPTS:
A. Complexity & systems thinking: what makes them different from conventional thinking?
Systems thinking: holistic approach that focuses on understanding how the components of a system
interact, and influence each other, and contribute to the behavior of the whole
- Differs from conventional (structural and linear) thinking because it paints a big picture. It
accounts for dynamic interactions and non-linear paths. It looks at all cultural, social, and
historical values
- Reductionist= scales interact, patterns emerge
- Linear= misses contingent independent factors and decision; the system is not deterministic
- Structural= dynamic and misses the moving parts
o What do we mean by feedbacks and cascading effects?




 Positive feedback when the increase in one variable increases another variable-
same direction
 Negative feedback= when one increases, the other decreases or vice versa- opposite
direction
 += reinforcing or amplifying
 -=stabilizing or dampening
 Cascading effects= an emergent property



Video Guide: *** please watch; ** quite useful to review concepts; * for your interest

,  Feedbacks
 Thresholds
 Adaptation
o Why is complexity thinking helpful for understanding ecological degradation and
restoration?
 Helps integrate across levels and think about dynamics and change
 Form a bigger picture
 Understand the way things change
 Include many different attributes to the complex system and allow them to be
accounted for
 Emphasizes relationships, feedback loops, and dynamics within a system rather than
isolating individual parts
 Can help integrate across scales, appreciate context, design better research, and
solve complex problems
 We as humans are part of systems: time and change

o If you are given a description of interactions, can you use boxes and arrows to represent the
cause-effect relationships? (like cows, grass, farmer adding hay, or the effects of digging
half-moons in the Great Green Wall of Africa?)
 Objects are the state
 Arrows are the effects
 Increase in lynx= decrease in hares (-)
 Decrease in hares= decrease in lynx (+)
-

B. Multiple values regarding restoration
o What’s the difference between ecological restoration and restoration ecology?
 Restoration ecology is the field of applied science
 Includes theory, principles, and research that help us understand:
 cause and effect
 and factors that may affect restoration outcomes,
 and help determine what can be achieved
 Ecological restoration is its application, the practice (ACTION AND INTERVENTION)
 The action and interactions that will occur and how they will be achieved
through management, additions, and disruptions
 EX. Planting native grass seeds on an eroded slope- an action
 We manipulate, create, disturb, protect, etc. the process of assisting the
recovery of an ecosystem that has been damaged, degraded, destroyed
o What are the roles of science and values in ecological restoration? [science tells us what
will happen, values tell us what should happen (good/bad)]
 Science explains the cause and effect
 Ecology tells us what will happen
 Values tell us what should happen
o Different fields grow different trees.
o Things we all hold as “true” may differ
o What is a novel ecosystem? [it is not intentionally created]




Video Guide: *** please watch; ** quite useful to review concepts; * for your interest

,  Novel ecosystem= An ecosystem that significantly differs in composition and/or
function from historic system due to human-induced changes like altered species
distribution or environmental modifications
 “An ecosystem with a suite of species that has never occurred naturally, which is
infeasible to restore to a historic assemblage due to current ecological conditions or
human priorities”
 A concept to help know and plan restoration when we can’t go back
 Implications: management does not always stick to historical system and
can change to be more adaptive
 Historic might not work anymore or be hard to maintain
o What are ecosystem services? = provisioning, regulating, cultural
 Ecosystem services: things provided by ecosystem resources and processes that we
can benefit from
 Aligns with meliorative goals of restoration: all about how we as humans view
natures uses for what we need them for (extraction)
 Use and Management affects ecosystem condition and thus flow of services from
ecosystems
 Provisioning= things we EXTRACT
 Regulating= things and processes in nature that WE RELY ON
 Cultural= things we VALUE AS PEOPLE
 4 uses of ecosystem services concept:
~1 Tradeoff analysis: plotting one service yield against another, and the "frontier" of what's achievable
o What is Utility (in the economic sense of the word)?
 Measures the usefulness or satisfaction derived from something- defines its value
o Same quantity of a service can have different values to different people
~2 Daisy diagrams of multiple services – how are these useful?
o Stakeholders can visualize complex ideas to determine their values
~3 Valuing ecosystem services – NYC watershed example
o Natural Capital Project’s InVEST for calculating it
o pros and cons of assigning & paying dollar values for nature
 everyone might not agree to the value or the cost to protect it
~4 Payments for ecosystem services – understand the basic idea (someone gets paid for maintaining a
service that someone else values)
o Payments can solve problems OR create them (Costa Rica, REDD+, carbon finance in Africa)
o It incentivizes nature
o Market value might not reflect all values


C. The “Ecology” in Restoration Ecology
o What is the environmental filters concept? What are the 3 levels? How can it be used to
help develop a restoration strategy?




Video Guide: *** please watch; ** quite useful to review concepts; * for your interest