INS 7: Ecology "Hacks" for Restoration Success

Session Organizer(s)

• Mark Brunson

  Department of Environment and Society, Utah State University
  Logan, UT, USA

Moderator(s)

• Mark Brunson

  Department of Environment and Society, Utah State University
  Logan, UT, USA

Volunteer(s)

• Molly Reichenborn

  New Mexico State University

The word “hack” used to carry negative connotations, referring to uncreative writers, worn-out workhorses, and illegal computer activity. Recently it has also come to be used to describe creatively improvised improvements or solutions to common challenges. This session uses the term in the latter sense – focusing on the role that ecological knowledge and theory can play in the design and enhancement of ecosystem restoration strategies under challenging conditions. Ecological restoration is the process of assisting recovery of a community, population, or ecosystem that has been degraded or damaged. Yet while the word "ecological" appears in the name, restoration practice is not always based on ecological theory (Lake et al. 2007; Torök & Helm 2017). Often restoration projects take on more of an agronomic character, guided by knowledge about which plants can most easily be grown under existing conditions and assuming that if a new plant community is established, the rest of the ecosystem will come along eventually. This session focuses on situations when that approach is not sufficient. Speakers will present examples of how ecological knowledge truly matters, describing situations where they have been able to use an ecological principle or relationship to improve restoration success in a situation where success had been hard to achieve. They will describe ecological influences on restoration success in a variety of geographic, ecosystem, and management contexts, from the California coast to southern Michigan and from streamside riparian areas to forest understories to arid soils.

Presentations:

• ON DEMAND

  Hacks for overcoming the cryptic obstacles to restoration success: Insights from sagebrush steppe
  

  Presenting Author: Matthew J. Germino – Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, US Geological Survey
• ON DEMAND

  How we stopped worrying and learned to love the flood: Long-term riparian restoration on Lower Cache Creek, Yolo County, CA
  

  Presenting Author: Andrew P. Rayburn – Cache Creek Technical Advisory Committee
• ON DEMAND

  Lets not reinvent the wheel: Using very old school strategies for cheap and easy restoration success!
  

  Presenting Author: Elise S. Gornish – School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona
• ON DEMAND

  Restoring missing mutualists to post-agricultural soils
  

  Presenting Author: Jonathan Bauer – Miami University
• ON DEMAND

  The importance of priority effects in restoring temperate forests understories after invasion
  

  Presenting Author: Laís Petri – School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan
• ON DEMAND

  The waiting game: Passive restoration of biological soil crusts after fire in coastal California
  

  Presenting Author: Brianne R. Palmer – Plant Science, University of California, Davis
• ON DEMAND

  Working to retain water where and when it is most needed in arid and semi-arid restoration projects
  

  Presenting Author: Akasha Faist – Department of Animal and Range Sciences, New Mexico State University