Restoration Enhances Wetland Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Supply, but Results Are Context-Dependent: A Meta-Analysis
Open accessAbstract
Wetlands are valuable ecosystems because they harbor a huge biodiversity and provide key services to societies. When natural or human factors degrade wetlands, ecological restoration is often carried out to recover biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES). Although such restorations are routinely performed, we lack systematic, evidence-based assessments of their effectiveness on the recovery of biodiversity and ES. Here we performed a meta-analysis of 70 experimental studies in order to assess the effectiveness of ecological restoration and identify what factors affect it. We compared selected ecosystem performance variables between degraded and restored wetlands and between restored and natural wetlands using response ratios and random-effects categorical modeling. We assessed how context factors such as ecosystem type, main agent of degradation, restoration action, experimental design, and restoration age influenced post-restoration biodiversity and ES. Biodiversity showed excellent recovery, though the precise recovery depended strongly on the type of organisms involved. Restored wetlands showed 36% higher levels of provisioning, regulating and supporting ES than did degraded wetlands. In fact, wetlands showed levels of provisioning and cultural ES similar to those of natural wetlands; however, their levels of supporting and regulating ES were, respectively, 16% and 22% lower than in natural wetlands. Recovery of biodiversity and of ES were positively correlated, indicating a win-win restoration outcome. The extent to which restoration increased biodiversity and ES in degraded wetlands depended primarily on the main agent of degradation, restoration actions, experimental design, and ecosystem type. In contrast, the choice of specific restoration actions alone explained most differences between restored and natural wetlands. These results highlight the importance of comprehensive, multi-factorial assessment to determine the ecological status of degraded, restored and natural wetlands and thereby evaluate the effectiveness of ecological restorations. Future research on wetland restoration should also seek to identify which restoration actions work best for specific habitats.
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Restoring already degraded wetlands has large potential to improve conditions for biodiversity.
“Restoring already degraded wetlands can sequester carbon on a century scale, albeit at an often relatively slow pace and possibly at the expense of increased CH 4 emissions (53), but with large potential to improve conditions for biodiversity (54).”
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Correa, V. C., Lugo-Agudelo, L. H., Aguirre-Acevedo, D. C., Contreras, J. A. P., Borrero, A. M. P., Patiño-Lugo, D. F., & Valencia, D. A. C. (2020) · Health Research Policy and Systems · doi:10.1186/s12961-020-00588-8 · Cited by 407 · see citing works
Arneth, A., Olsson, L., Cowie, A., Erb, K.-H., Hurlbert, M., Kurz, W. A., Mirzabaev, A., & Rounsevell, M. D. A. (2021) · Annual Review of Environment and Resources · doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-012320-054809 · Cited by 106 · see citing works
“Restoring already degradedwetlands can sequester carbon on a century scale, albeit at an often relatively slow pace and possibly at the expense of increased CH4 emissions (53), but with large potential to improve conditions for biodiversity (54).”
Background
- Authors
- Meli, P., Rey Benayas, J. M., Balvanera, P., & Martínez Ramos, M.
- Affiliations
- Universidad de Alcalá (ES)
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (MX)
- Corresponding author
- Meli, Paula
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2014-04-17
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e93507
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3990551
- OpenAlex
- W2073272243
- Cited by
- 289
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 29 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 7.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- e_Buah (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Ocean Engineering › Wetland Management and Conservation
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Coastal wetland ecosystem dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Keywords
- wetland restoration, wetland biodiversity, ecosystem services, restoration effectiveness, degraded wetlands, provisioning services, regulating services, supporting services, cultural ecosystem services, restoration age
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Conservation of Natural Resources, Humans, Biodiversity, Wetlands
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