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Figure 4:
The relationship between biodiversity and degree of ecosystem service restored.
Figure 5:
Ecosystem service response to restoration in differ-
ent biomes.
(3) regulating (e.g., of climate, water supply, and soil charac-
teristics), and (4) cultural (e.g., aesthetic value). In the study
only the first three services were assessed, because cultural
services were not measured explicitly in any of the studies ad-
dressed. Measures of biodiversity were typically related to the
abundance, species richness, diversity, growth, or biomass of
organisms present.
The study revealed that ecological restoration increased pro-
vision of biodiversity and ecosystem services by 44 and 25%,
respectively across the 89 studies of different restoration proj-
ects. However, values of both remained lower in restored ver-
sus intact reference ecosystems, underlining the challenges
and timescales required to fully restore a degraded ecosystem.
Ecological restoration was particularly effective in tropical ter-
restrial areas, which hold the largest amounts of biodiversity
and are usually subject to high levels of human pressure.
The meta-analysis revealed another crucial finding: increases
in biodiversity and ecosystem service measures after restora-
tion were positively correlated. This indicates that restoration
actions focused on enhancing biodiversity should support in-
creased provision of ecosystem services, particularly in tropi-
cal terrestrial biomes. Conversely, these results suggest that
ecosystem restoration focused mainly on improving services
should also have a primary aim at restoring biodiversity, as eco-
system services and biodiversity are intrinsically linked.
Ecological restoration can act as an engine of economy and a
source of green employment, so the results of this research give
policymakers an extra incentive to restore degraded ecosystems.
0
1
2
3
4
-1
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Source: Benayas,
et al. Enhancement of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by Ecological Restoration: A Meta-Analysis,
Science, 2009.
Response ratio for services
Supporting
Regulating
Provisioning
Ecosystem service function
Response ratio for biodiversity
Correlations between response ratios for biodiversity and for provision
of ecosystem services