Ecological Applications最新文献

{"title":"Heterogeneity promotes resilience in restored prairie: Implications for the environmental heterogeneity hypothesis","authors":"Ashley A. Wojciechowski,&nbsp;John M. Blair,&nbsp;Scott L. Collins,&nbsp;Sara G. Baer","doi":"10.1002/eap.3006","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3006","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Enhancing resilience in formerly degraded ecosystems is an important goal of restoration ecology. However, evidence for the recovery of resilience and its underlying mechanisms require long-term experiments and comparison with reference ecosystems. We used data from an experimental prairie restoration that featured long-term soil heterogeneity manipulations and data from two long-term experiments located in a comparable remnant (reference) prairie to (1) quantify the recovery of ecosystem functioning (i.e., productivity) relative to remnant prairie, (2) compare the resilience of restored and remnant prairies to a natural drought, and (3) test whether soil heterogeneity enhances resilience of restored prairie. We compared sensitivity and legacy effects between prairie types (remnant and restored) and among four prairie sites that included two remnant prairie sites and prairie restored under homogeneous and heterogeneous soil conditions. We measured sensitivity and resilience as the proportional change in aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) during and following drought (sensitivity and legacy effects, respectively) relative to average ANPP based on 4 pre-drought years (2014–2017). In nondrought years, total ANPP was similar between remnant and restored prairie, but remnant prairie had higher grass productivity and lower forb productivity compared with restored prairie. These ANPP patterns generally persisted during drought. The sensitivity of total ANPP to drought was similar between restored and remnant prairie, but grasses in the restored prairie were more sensitive to drought. Post-drought legacy effects were more positive in the restored prairie, and we attributed this to the more positive and less variable legacy response of forb ANPP in the restored prairie, especially in the heterogeneous soil treatment. Our results suggest that productivity recovers in restored prairie and exhibits similar sensitivity to drought as in remnant prairie. Furthermore, creating heterogeneity promotes forb productivity and enhances restored prairie resilience to drought.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.3006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141730505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Functional responses of understory plants to natural disturbance-based management in eastern and western Canada","authors":"Marion Noualhaguet,&nbsp;Timothy T. Work,&nbsp;Charles A. Nock,&nbsp;S. Ellen Macdonald,&nbsp;Isabelle Aubin,&nbsp;Nicole J. Fenton","doi":"10.1002/eap.3011","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3011","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Natural disturbance-based management (NDBM) is hypothesized to maintain managed forest ecosystem integrity by reducing differences between natural and managed forests. The effectiveness of this approach often entails local comparisons of species composition or diversity for a variety of biota from managed and unmanaged forests. Understory vegetation is regularly the focus of such comparison because of its importance in nutrient cycling, forest regeneration, and for wildlife. However, larger scale comparisons between regions with distinct species assemblages may require a trait-based approach to better understand understory responses to disturbance. We compared the long-term effects of retention harvesting on understory vegetation in two large experimental study sites located in eastern and western regions of the Canadian boreal forest. These sites included the Sylviculture en Aménagement Forestier Ecosystémique (SAFE) experiment and the Ecosystem Management Emulating Natural Disturbance (EMEND) experiment, located in the eastern and western regions of Canada, respectively. EMEND and SAFE share common boreal understory species but have distinct tree communities, soils, and climate. Both experiments were designed to evaluate how increasing tree retention after harvest affects biodiversity. Here, we examined taxonomic richness, functional diversity, and functional composition (using community trait mean values) of understory plant communities, and also examine intraspecific trait variability (ITV) for five species common and abundant in both experiments. We observed the limited impacts of retention level on richness, functional diversity, and functional composition of understory plants 20 years postharvest. However, ITV of leaf morphological traits varied between retention levels within each experiment, depending on the species identity. Common species had different functional responses to retention level, showing species-specific reactions to environmental variation. Our result suggests that understory plant communities in the boreal forest achieve resilience to disturbance both in terms of interspecific and intraspecific functional trait diversity. Such diversity may be key to maintaining understory biodiversity in the face of future disturbances and environmental change. Our results reveal the significance of ITV in plant communities for understanding responses to forest harvesting and the importance of choosing appropriate traits when studying species responses to the environment.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.3011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141730689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impacts of stream drying depend on stream network size and location of drying","authors":"Megan C. Malish,&nbsp;Shang Gao,&nbsp;Daniel C. Allen,&nbsp;Thomas M. Neeson","doi":"10.1002/eap.3015","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3015","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Stream drying is increasing globally, with widespread impacts on stream ecosystems. Here, we investigated how the impacts of drying on stream ecosystem connectivity might depend on stream network size and the location of drying within the stream network. Using 11 stream networks from across the United States, we simulated drying scenarios in which we varied the location and spatial extent of drying. We found that the rate of connectivity loss varied with stream network size, such that larger stream networks lost connectivity more rapidly than smaller stream networks. We also found that the rate of connectivity loss varied with the location of drying. When drying occurred in the mainstem, even small amounts of drying resulted in rapid losses in ecosystem connectivity. When drying occurred in headwater reaches, small amounts of drying had little impact on connectivity. Beyond a certain threshold, however, connectivity declined rapidly with further increases in drying. Given the increasing stream drying worldwide, our findings underscore the need for managers to be particularly vigilant about fragmentation when managing at large spatial scales and when stream drying occurs in mainstem reaches.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141621845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mimicking functional elements of the natural flow regime promotes native fish recovery in a regulated river","authors":"Ethan M. Baruch,&nbsp;Sarah M. Yarnell,&nbsp;Theodore E. Grantham,&nbsp;Jessica R. Ayers,&nbsp;Andrew L. Rypel,&nbsp;Robert A. Lusardi","doi":"10.1002/eap.3013","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3013","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Streamflow regimes that maintain vital functions and processes of aquatic ecosystems are critical to sustaining ecosystem health. In rivers with altered flow regimes, restoring components of the natural flow regime is predicted to conserve freshwater biodiversity by supporting ecological functions and geomorphological processes to which native communities are adapted. However, the effectiveness of environmental flow restoration is poorly understood because of inadequate monitoring and uncertainty in ecological responses to managed changes in specific, quantifiable aspects of the annual streamflow regime. Here, we used time series models to analyze 25 years of fish assemblage data collected before and after environmental flow implementation in a dammed river in California, USA. We examined the response of the fish community to changes in individual components of the flow regime known to support ecosystem functions. We found that as functional flow components shifted toward their predicted natural range, the quasi-extinction risk (likelihood of population declines of &gt;80%) decreased for the native fish assemblage. Following environmental flow implementation, observed changes toward natural ranges of dry season duration, fall pulse flow magnitude, and wet season timing each reduced quasi-extinction risk by at least 40% for the native assemblage. However, functional flow components that shifted away from their predicted natural range, including lower spring recession flows and higher dry season baseflow, resulted in greater quasi-extinction risk for native species. In contrast, non-native species decreased in abundance when flow components shifted toward predicted natural ranges and increased when components shifted away from their natural range. Although most functional flow components remained outside of their natural range following environmental flow implementation, our results indicate that even moderate shifts toward a natural flow regime can benefit native and suppress non-native fish species. Overall, this study provides the most compelling evidence to date of the effectiveness of functional environmental flows in supporting native fish recovery in a highly regulated river.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.3013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141617698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Centering Amah Mutsun voices in the analysis of a culturally important, fire-managed coastal grassland","authors":"Annalise Taylor,&nbsp;Alexii Sigona,&nbsp;Maggi Kelly","doi":"10.1002/eap.3014","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3014","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Indigenous communities throughout California, USA, are increasingly advocating for and practicing cultural fire stewardship, leading to a host of social, cultural, and ecological benefits. Simultaneously, state agencies are recognizing the importance of controlled burning and cultural fire as a means of reducing the risk of severe wildfire while benefiting fire-adapted ecosystems. However, much of the current research on the impacts of controlled burning ignores the cultural importance of these ecosystems, and risks further marginalizing Indigenous knowledge systems. Our work adds a critical Indigenous perspective to the study of controlled burning in California's unique coastal grasslands, one of the most biodiverse and endangered ecosystems in the country. In this study, we partnered with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band to investigate how the abundance and occurrence of shrubs, cultural plants, and invasive plants differed among three adjacent coastal grasslands with varying fire histories. These three sites are emblematic of the state's diverging approaches to grassland management: fire suppression, fire suppression followed by wildfire, and an exceedingly rare example of a grassland that has been repeatedly burned approximately every 2 years for more than 30 years. We found that <i>Danthonia californica</i> was significantly more abundant on the burned sites, whereas all included shrub species (<i>Baccharis pilularis</i>, <i>Frangula californica</i>, and <i>Rubus ursinus</i>) were significantly more abundant on the site with no recorded fire, results that have important implications for future cultural revitalization efforts and the loss of coastal grasslands to shrub encroachment. In addition to conducting a culturally relevant vegetation survey, we used Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to compare the relative severities of the two most recent fire events within the study area. Critically, we used interviews with Amah Mutsun tribal members to contextualize the results of our vegetation survey and remote sensing analysis, and to investigate how cultural burning contrasts from typical Western fire management approaches in this region. Our study is a novel example of how interviews, field data, and satellite imagery can be combined to gain a deeper ecological and cultural understanding of fire in California's endangered coastal grasslands.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.3014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141617610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unraveling spatial heterogeneity of soil legacy phosphorus in subtropical grasslands","authors":"Jiangxiao Qiu,&nbsp;Ran Zhi,&nbsp;Elizabeth H. Boughton,&nbsp;Haoyu Li,&nbsp;Charlotte R. B. Henderson,&nbsp;Daniel F. Petticord,&nbsp;Jed P. Sparks,&nbsp;Amartya Saha,&nbsp;K. Ramesh Reddy","doi":"10.1002/eap.3007","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3007","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Humans have profoundly altered phosphorus (P) cycling across scales. Agriculturally driven changes (e.g., excessive P-fertilization and manure addition), in particular, have resulted in pronounced P accumulations in soils, often known as “soil legacy P.” These legacy P reserves serve as persistent and long-term nonpoint sources, inducing downstream eutrophication and ecosystem services degradation. While there is considerable scientific and policy interest in legacy P, its fine-scale spatial heterogeneity, underlying drivers, and scales of variance remain unclear. Here we present an extensive field sampling (150-m interval grid) and analysis of 1438 surface soils (0–15 cm) in 2020 for two typical subtropical grassland types managed for livestock production: Intensively managed (IM) and Semi-natural (SN) pastures. We ask the following questions: (1) What is the spatial variability, and are there hotspots of soil legacy P? (2) Does soil legacy P vary primarily within pastures, among pastures, or between pasture types? (3) How does soil legacy P relate to pasture management intensity, soil and geographic characteristics? and (4) What is the relationship between soil legacy P and aboveground plant tissue P concentration? Our results showed that three measurements of soil legacy P (total P, Mehlich-1, and Mehlich-3 extractable P representing labile P pools) varied substantially across the landscape. Spatial autoregressive models revealed that soil organic matter, pH, available Fe and Al, elevation, and pasture management intensity were crucial predictors for spatial patterns of soil P, although models were more reliable for predicting total P (68.9%) than labile P. Our analysis further demonstrated that total variance in soil legacy P was greater in IM than SN pastures, and intensified pasture management rescaled spatial patterns of soil legacy P. In particular, after controlling for sample size, soil P was extremely variable at small scales, with variance diminished as spatial scale increased. Our results suggest that broad pasture- or farm-level best management practices may be limited and less efficient, especially for more IM pastures. Rather, management to curtail soil legacy P and mitigate P loading and losses should be implemented at fine scales designed to target spatially distinct P hotspots across the landscape.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141565164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Longevity of hymenopteran parasitoids in natural versus agricultural habitats and implications for biological control","authors":"Miriam Kishinevsky,&nbsp;Anthony R. Ives","doi":"10.1002/eap.3009","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3009","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Agricultural habitats are frequently disturbed, and disturbances could have major effects on species in upper trophic levels such as hymenopteran parasitoids that are important for biological control. A strategy for conservation biological control is to provide a diversified agricultural landscape which increases the availability of resources such as sugar required by parasitoid biological control agents. Here, we ask whether parasitoids occurring in agriculture benefit from sugar resources more or less than parasitoids occurring in natural habitats surrounding agricultural fields. We collected parasitoids from agricultural alfalfa fields, field margins, and natural prairies, and in the lab we randomly divided them into two treatments: half were given a constant supply of a sugar source to test their residual lifespan, and half were given neither sugar nor water to test their hardiness. Collected individuals were monitored daily and their day of death recorded. Parasitoids receiving a sugar source lived substantially longer than those without. Parasitoids collected in prairies lived longer than those from alfalfa fields in both the residual lifespan and hardiness treatments, with parasitoids from field margins being intermediate between them. Furthermore, the benefits of a sugar source to increase longevity was lower for parasitoids collected in agriculture than in natural habitats. This suggests that, even though parasitoid biological control agents benefit from sugar resources, their short lifespans make the benefit of sugar resources small compared to parasitoids that occur in natural habitats and have longer lifespans, and are adapted to consistent sugar sources.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.3009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141560418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Strong and consistent effects of waterbird composition on HPAI H5 occurrences across Europe","authors":"Shenglai Yin,&nbsp;Chi Xu,&nbsp;Yong Zhang,&nbsp;Willem F. de Boer,&nbsp;Taej Mundkur,&nbsp;Jean Artois,&nbsp;Francisca C. Velkers,&nbsp;John Y. Takekawa,&nbsp;Yali Si,&nbsp;Huaiyu Tian,&nbsp;Guan-Zhu Han,&nbsp;Yuyang Chen,&nbsp;Hongliang Chai,&nbsp;Lijuan Cui,&nbsp;Zheng Y. X. Huang","doi":"10.1002/eap.3010","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3010","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Since 2014, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5 viruses of clade 2.3.4.4 have been dominating the outbreaks across Europe, causing massive deaths among poultry and wild birds. However, the factors shaping these broad-scale outbreak patterns, especially those related to waterbird community composition, remain unclear. In particular, we do not know whether these risk factors differ from those of other H5 clades. Addressing this knowledge gap is important for predicting and preventing future HPAI outbreaks. Using extensive waterbird survey datasets from about 6883 sites, we here explored the effect of waterbird community composition on HPAI H5Nx (clade 2.3.4.4) spatial patterns in the 2016/2017 and 2020/2021 epidemics in Europe, and compared it with the 2005/2006 HPAI H5N1 (clade 2.2) epidemic. We showed that HPAI H5 occurrences in wild birds in the three epidemics were strongly associated with very similar waterbird community attributes, which suggested that, in nature, similar interspecific transmission processes operate between the HPAI H5 subtypes or clades. Importantly, community phylogenetic diversity consistently showed a negative association with H5 occurrence in all three epidemics, suggesting a dilution effect of phylogenetic diversity. In contrast, waterbird community variables showed much weaker associations with HPAI H5Nx occurrence in poultry. Our results demonstrate that models based on previous epidemics can predict future HPAI H5 patterns in wild birds, implying that it is important to include waterbird community factors in future HPAI studies to predict outbreaks and improve surveillance activities.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141560419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Disturbance-mediated changes to boreal mammal spatial networks in industrializing landscapes","authors":"Gonçalo Curveira-Santos,&nbsp;Solène Marion,&nbsp;Chris Sutherland,&nbsp;Christopher Beirne,&nbsp;Emily J. Herdman,&nbsp;Erin R. Tattersall,&nbsp;Joanna M. Burgar,&nbsp;Jason T. Fisher,&nbsp;A. Cole Burton","doi":"10.1002/eap.3004","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3004","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Compound effects of anthropogenic disturbances on wildlife emerge through a complex network of direct responses and species interactions. Land-use changes driven by energy and forestry industries are known to disrupt predator–prey dynamics in boreal ecosystems, yet how these disturbance effects propagate across mammal communities remains uncertain. Using structural equation modeling, we tested disturbance-mediated pathways governing the spatial structure of multipredator multiprey boreal mammal networks across a landscape-scale disturbance gradient within Canada's Athabasca oil sands region. Linear disturbances had pervasive direct effects, increasing site use for all focal species, except black bears and threatened caribou, in at least one landscape. Conversely, block (polygonal) disturbance effects were negative but less common. Indirect disturbance effects were widespread and mediated by caribou avoidance of wolves, tracking of primary prey by subordinate predators, and intraguild dependencies among predators and large prey. Context-dependent responses to linear disturbances were most common among prey and within the landscape with intermediate disturbance. Our research suggests that industrial disturbances directly affect a suite of boreal mammals by altering forage availability and movement, leading to indirect effects across a range of interacting predators and prey, including the keystone snowshoe hare. The complexity of network-level direct and indirect disturbance effects reinforces calls for increased investment in addressing habitat degradation as the root cause of threatened species declines and broader ecosystem change.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.3004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141460893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Conserving ecosystem integrity: Ecological theory as a guide for marine protected area monitoring","authors":"Anya Dunham,&nbsp;Josephine C. Iacarella,&nbsp;Karen L. Hunter,&nbsp;Sarah C. Davies,&nbsp;Sarah Dudas,&nbsp;Katie S. P. Gale,&nbsp;Emily Rubidge,&nbsp;Stephanie K. Archer","doi":"10.1002/eap.3005","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3005","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Global policies increasingly focus on the importance of maintaining or improving the integrity of ecosystems, but defining, assessing, and monitoring integrity in marine protected areas (MPAs) remains a challenge. In this paper, we conceptualized ecological integrity along dimensions of heterogeneity and stability containing seven components: physical structure, diversity, function, persistence, resistance, resilience, and natural variability. Through a structured literature search, we identified indicators and metrics used for quantifying ecosystem status components in the marine environment, then reviewed MPA management plans worldwide for inclusion of these components. We evaluated 202 papers applying 83 ecological indicators built from 72 metrics. Ecosystem components were most comprehensively addressed by metrics of taxa presence, organisms count, and area occupied by benthic organisms, and community structure, biomass, and percent cover indicators. Of the 557 MPA management plans we reviewed globally, 93% used at least one ecosystem status term or its synonym in an ecologically relevant context, but 39% did not address any components of stability. In particular, resistance was mentioned in only 1% of management plans, but in some cases it may be inferred from indicators and metrics used to track the best addressed component in management plans, diversity. Plans for MPAs with both an ecological/biological purpose and a research and education purpose contained ecosystem status terms more frequently than other plans, suggesting that engagement with the scientific community may have improved the application of these terms. An improved understanding of how to operationalize and measure ecological integrity can help MPA monitoring and management.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"34 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.3005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141452754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}