Linking Restoration and Ecological Succession (Springer ... - Inecol

(a)
(c)
Chapter 7 Restoration as a Process of Assembly and Succession Mediated by Disturbance 159
Disturbance
Assembly Succession
Restoration
Disturbance
Assembly Succession
Restoration
(b)
(d)
Disturbance
Assembly Succession
Restoration
Disturbance
Succession
Assembly
Restoration
Figure 7.2 Ways of conceptualizing the links between ideas on succession, assembly,
disturbance, and restoration. (a) Each is separate and does not interact with the other,
(b) Assembly and succession are separate bodies of theory, but each is mediated by
disturbance and has relevance to restoration, (c) As for (b) except that assembly and
succession overlap in some aspects, (d) Assembly is seen as a subset of succession
theory.
to indicate where profitable linkages between the three sets of concepts of
succession, assembly, and disturbance may lie. Further development of these
potential synergies may form part of a conceptual “toolbox” which can usefully
inform restoration practice (Fig. 7.3). In this final section, we provide a series
of suggestions for issues which might be important in this regard.
Managing disturbance regimes to modify community assembly and succession
in a restoration process obviously poses some fundamental challenges
to practitioners. Human disturbance regimes, e.g., due to management action
such as mowing, grazing, or suppression of fire, need to be tested for their historic
bounds of variation. Disturbances that have historic precedence and hence
produce conditions that are within the historic bounds of variation for an ecosystem
may produce different responses, or serve different restoration goals, than
disturbances that are novel or create conditions that are outside those bounds
(White and Jentsch 2004). Also, novel disturbances (ones not previously experienced
by the ecosystem) act as filters for community assembly. At evolutionary
time scales, precedence would ultimately be responsible for the range of life