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Accounting for the values placed on nature by the public is key to successful policies in reversing ongoing biodiversity declines. However, biodiversity values are rarely included in policy decisions, resulting in poorer outcomes for people and nature.Our paper addresses an important evidence gap related to the non‐availability of values for appraising large‐scale policies and investment programmes for species recovery and habitat improvement at the national level.We use a stated preference choice modelling approach to estimate household preferences and Willingness to Pay for species recovery and habitat improvement over a wide range of habitats in England.The framing of our stated preference study is crucial to the evidence we develop. Within the study, we define species recovery as incremental improvements to habitat quality and present respondents with choices between conservation policy options that improve different habitat types. We then use the response data to estimate values for habitat quality improvements, and the associated improvements to species presence and abundance. We are thus able to estimate economic benefits for 'wild species recovery' simultaneously across a wide range of habitat types.Willingness to pay values for habitat improvement was found to be highest for improvements from 'moderate' to 'full' species recovery by 2042; and for habitat types which have relatively low current extents in England, such as lowland fens.Policy Implications: biodiversity policy designers can make use of stated preference methods to guide decisions over which aspects of biodiversity targets to focus more resources on, since this enables policy to reflect public preferences, and thus engages higher public support for conservation. In our specific data and context, this implies prioritising the restoration of species recovery to high levels and focussing resources on scarcer rather than more abundant habitat types. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rewilding is an emerging paradigm in restoration science and is increasingly gaining popularity as a cost‐effective ecosystem restoration option. A rewilding framework was recently proposed that contains three integral components: restoring trophic complexity, allowing for stochastic disturbances and enhancing species' potential to disperse. However, as of yet, there has been limited quantitative analysis looking at public preference for rewilding and each of its elements.We used a discrete choice experiment approach to determine public preference for rewilding in the Oder Delta. The unique geographical context of the Oder Delta, spreading evenly across two countries, allowed us to analyse differences between the German (n = 1005) and Polish (n = 1066) samples.In both countries, we found that respondents were willing to pay for rewilding interventions when compared against a status quo option. Notably, preferences were strongest for restoring trophic complexity through promoting the comeback of large mammals.In addition, we found respondents living locally to the study region had significantly different preferences than the nationwide samples, exhibiting negative willingness to pay for the restoration of natural flooding regimes and the presence of large predator species. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effective and efficient monitoring of revegetation outcomes is a key component of ecosystem restoration. Monitoring often involves labor‐intensive manual methods, which are difficult to deploy when sites are inaccessible or involve large areas of revegetation. This study aimed to identify plant species and quantify α‐diversity index on a sub‐meter scale at Manlailiang Mine Site in Northwestern China using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as a means to semiautomate large‐scale vegetation monitoring. UAVs equipped with multispectral sensors were combined with three industry‐standard supervised classification algorithms (support vector machine [SVM], maximum likelihood, and artificial neural network) to classify plant species. Spectral vegetation indices (normalized difference vegetation index [NDVI], difference vegetation index [DVI], visible‐band difference vegetation index, soil‐adjusted vegetation index, modified soil‐adjusted vegetation index, and excess green–excess red) were used to assess vegetation diversity obtained from on‐ground survey plot data (the Margalef, Pielou, Simpson, and Shannon–Wiener indices). Our results showed that SVM outperformed other algorithms in species identification accuracy (overall accuracy of 84%). Significant relationships were observed between vegetation indices and diversity indices, with the DVI performing significantly better than many more commonly used indices such as the NDVI. The findings highlight the potential of combining UAV multispectral data, spectral vegetation indices and ground surveys for effective and efficient fine‐scale monitoring of vegetation diversity in the ecological restoration of mining areas. This has significant practical benefits for improving adaptive management of restoration through improved monitoring tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land degradation is one of the most pressing environmental problems of the 21st century particularly due to its impact on global food security and environmental quality through the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Land degradation happens at an accelerated rate and affects regions inhabited by more than one‐third population of the world. This phenomenon resulted in a dramatic reduction in the productivity of cropland and rangeland of world thus threatening the environmental quality and food security. It manifests in various forms such as desertification, soil erosion, sodicity, salinity, heavy metal contamination, pesticide contamination, declining soil fertility, and fate of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The world now has a real chance for the next generation to grow sustainably and eliminate acute food scarcity. Microbes, as vital elements of soil, play an important role in maintaining soil biological properties and fertility. Due to their multifarious biological functions and metabolic uniqueness, microorganisms can fix or solubilize nutrients, add organic matters to the soil to improve its quality. Many of the microorganisms can produce biological compounds or enzymes, which can degrade or scavenge toxic substances from the soils. In this review, we have discussed in detail how diverse microorganisms can help to restore different types of degraded lands. The limitations in application of microorganisms in restoration of soil health and possible scopes to improve the applicability have also been discussed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we aimed to assess the impact of vegetation restoration measures on the soil microbial community in degraded land via assessing the structural changes and diversity of soil bacterial communities and their response to environmental variables in the rhizocompartments (i.e., intershrub bulk soil, rhizosphere soil, and roots) of two legumes (Hedysarum scoparium and Hedysarum mongolicum) in Mu Us Desert, China. The bacterial diversity and soil physicochemical characteristics were studied using high‐throughput 16S rRNA genome sequencing and traditional soil physicochemical indices, respectively. The rhizocompartment types and plant species jointly affected the alpha and beta diversities of bacterial communities in the rhizosphere and non‐rhizosphere soil; however, rhizocompartments played a dominant role (P < 0.05). Compared with the network of root endophytes, the bacterial network in the rhizosphere soil exhibited increased total nodes, total links, harmonic geodesic distance, and modularity indices, and the structure was more complex. The root endophytic community was primarily impacted by soil nutrients (particularly nitrogen and soil organic carbon), whereas bacterial communities of bacteria in the nonrhizosphere and rhizosphere soil were significantly impacted by ammonium nitrogen and soil pH because of the response of the core bacterial taxa to soil physicochemical properties. These findings revealed that plant restoration techniques drive desertification reversal via altering the composition and diversity of soil bacterial communities. This study provided new insights regarding the ecological restoration of degraded lands in deserts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land rehabilitation through exclosures has been recognized as a promising practice in the restoration of degraded drylands. This study evaluated woody species density, diversity, cover, and biomass production from three regeneration approaches (EMTs): (1) Naturally Regenerated (ENR) exclosures, (2) exclosures with Soil and Water Conservation Structures (ECNR), and (3) those enriched with exotic and local plant species in addition to SWC structures (ECP) among which empirical evidence of comparisons are lacking for appropriate decision making of which restoration strategy to promote. Primary data were collected from a total of 72 study plots located across transects laid within exclosures and in adjacent grazing areas with similar ecological condition. Interview with 331 households and focus groups was used to further understand the effects. Regression analysis revealed that the mean difference in herbaceous and canopy cover, herbaceous and woody biomass, and woody species density and diversity of the three EMTs was statistically significantly higher than in the adjacent open grazing areas. Moreover, herbaceous biomass in ECP differed significantly from that of ECNR. The results indicated that ENR and ECP equally enhanced the selected vegetation parameters. This is predominantly attributed to the comparable responsiveness of many degraded areas to natural regeneration as they do to active regeneration approaches. Implementation of natural regeneration is suitable for immediate recruitment of strategy in terms of resources, time, and meeting objectives before decisions are made for assisted models of exclosure that require massive campaigns to construct soil and water conservation structures and huge seedling production in the dryland areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instream barriers remain ubiquitous threats to freshwater species and their habitats. Decisions regarding barrier removal are often aimed at maximizing habitat area and connectivity for freshwater fish; yet can be challenging due to the sheer number of barriers, uncertainty in species presence, abundance, and habitat quality, as well as limited budgets alongside high costs of restoration. Here, we apply systematic conservation planning to prioritize in‐stream barrier removal aimed at restoring habitat connectivity for 14 populations of wild Pacific salmon in the lower Fraser River, Canada's most productive salmon‐bearing river. To understand how priorities change when stream quality is considered, we contrast scenarios that maximize habitat extent with scenarios that include four indicators of habitat quality. Region‐wide, approximately 64% of naturally accessible stream length is currently blocked by barriers. We estimate approximately 75% of this alienated habitat (over 1600 km of stream), could have full access restored with an investment of $200 million CAD, whereas 60% could be restored for half this amount. When stream quality was considered within the optimization, priorities for barriers removal shifted away from urbanized floodplain valleys towards less developed areas. The spatial shift in priorities meant that species like chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) would see less restored habitat. To inform barrier removal strategies using these model scenarios, an iterative and adaptive approach will be required that includes the values and priorities of rights and titleholders. Continuous improvement in data quality, accuracy, and feedback from monitoring as barriers are restored is also crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a major role in maintaining long‐term ecological stability. This paper focuses on how land use conversion affects the stability of SOC (e.g., carbon [C] molecular structure) and how soil C cycle‐related enzyme activities are involved in the process. Four land use types around the southern margin of Qinghai Lake were researched: lakeside wetland, natural grassland, cropland, and restored grassland. Soil C was dominated by O‐alkyl carbon (O‐alkyl C, 40.6%–49.3% of total intensity) and alkyl carbon (alkyl C 25.9%–36.7%) in all land use types. Alkyl C and aliphaticity were more abundant in lakeside wetlands than in the other land use types; these values decreased by 29.5% and 36.0%, respectively, after lakeside wetland reclamation. Compared with cropland, restored grassland had higher dissolved organic carbon and β‐glucosidase activity, mainly attributed to the higher plant residues left in the topsoil that provided the polysaccharides required for the higher β‐glucosidase activity. The SOC, labile carbon, alkyl C, and aliphaticity together explained more than 50% of the total variability of soil enzyme activities (p < 0.05) by redundancy analysis, and β‐glucosidase played a regulatory role in soil carbon conversion by path analysis. The lakeside wetland had a more stable SOC than the other land use types around Qinghai Lake at the molecular level due to its higher aliphaticity and aromaticity, which are mainly related to oxygen limitations in lakeside wetlands. To some extent, the accumulation of recalcitrant molecules is limited in restored grassland soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant diversity is an important link between forest ecosystems' structural composition and functional processes. The simple composition of young plantations is weakening the ecological function of restored forest ecosystems in arid regions. The ecological drivers of the plant composition and dissimilarity in plantations remain unclear, especially in the early restoration stage. To fill the gap in knowledge of the differences in species composition in early restored ecosystems, and to reveal the influencing factors of similar species numbers with different compositional structures, based on species' presence‐absence, abundance, and conspicuousness, we explored dissimilarity in the plant composition of young plantations in the loess hilly‐gully region. Our results showed that differences in alpha diversity among plantations were minimal, while the differences in beta diversity were significant. Even if the species diversity of a plantation was low, communities with similar species richness used to have large dissimilarities in their species composition. Turnover components and balanced variation often contributed significantly to species compositional dissimilarity. Co‐inertia analysis results showed species conspicuousness had the greatest consistency with observed environmental variables (RV = 0.65). The redundancy analysis and generalized diversity modeling results showed differences between the drivers of species diversity and dissimilarity. The primary influencing factors for alpha diversity were: soil water content, soil texture, soil total phosphorus, and soil organic carbon. Primary influencing factors for dissimilarity (beta diversity) were: soil nitrogen to phosphorus ratio, breast‐height diameter, soil water content, and stand density. Collectively, plant taxa dissimilarity was influenced by soil nutrient ratio and community structure and plant taxa abundance was influenced by soil nutrient content. Our findings improve the understanding of the plantation species composition and facilitate the prediction of ecological functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Re‐establishing extirpated wildlife—or "rewilding"—is touted as a way to restore biodiversity and ecosystem processes, but we lack real‐world examples of this process, particularly in Southeast Asia. Here, we use a decade of aggregated camera trap data, N‐mixture occupancy models, and input from local wildlife experts to describe the unassisted recolonization of two native large herbivores in Singapore. Sambar deer (Rusa unicolor) escaped from captivity (in private or public zoos) in the 1970s and contemporary camera trap data show they have only colonized nearby forest fragments and their abundance remains low. Wild pigs (Sus scrofa), in contrast, naturally recolonized by swimming from Malaysia in the 1990s and have rapidly expanded their range and abundance across Singapore. While wild pigs have not recolonized all viable green spaces yet, their trajectory indicates they soon will. We also note that a third ungulate, the muntjac deer (Muntiacus muntjak), was captured in camera trapping in 2014 and 2015 but was never recorded afterward despite increased sampling effort, and thus we do not focus on their presumably unsuccessful recolonization. The divergent rewilding trajectories between sambar deer and wild pigs suggest different conservation outcomes and management requirements. Sambar deer may restore lost plant–animal interactions such as herbivory and seed dispersal without requiring significant management. Wild pigs, in contrast, have reached high numbers rapidly and may require active management to avoid hyperabundance and negative ecological impacts in regions, such as Singapore that lack both hunting and large predators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tectona grandis L.f. has considerable potential to restore marginal and degraded lands as it offers multiple co‐benefits during the restoration venture. It provides good quality wood for multipurpose use, including biomass for bioenergy and noninvasive traits. For this, aboveground biomass (AGB) was assessed along with testing the critical soil properties (soil physicochemical and biological properties) across different plantation sites during a 4‐year study period (2015–2018). The study suggested that the soil properties like bulk density, moisture content, pH, organic carbon, available nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium have shown significant mean improvement in all planted sites collectively. These were improved by −0.21 g cm−3, 0.68%, −0.68, 0.27%, 13.69 mg kg−1, 11.77 mg kg−1, 95.20 mg kg−1, respectively, in an arid area (Mirzapur, i.e., M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, and M6 sites, representing a warm and tropical dry climate) from the unplanted control (CM1) during 2015–2018. Moreover, the microbial biomass carbon and dehydrogenase activity were significantly improved by 56.71 mg kg−1 and 6.92 μg TPF g−1 hr−1, respectively, from CM1. Similar results were also observed in the semiarid areas of Varanasi, representing a humid subtropical climatic pattern (i.e., V4 and V5 sites) compared to the unplanted control in the (CV1). Furthermore, the AGB was found between 12.56 and 229.13 kg tree−1, representing 5 and 30 years of plantation, respectively, in 2018. Reference sites (V1, V2, and V3) were also considered that reflect a planted control, which helped assess the comparison between variable sites and the sites under restoration. Therefore, the study further suggested that this tree species has the tremendous potential to restore marginal and degraded lands in the arid and semiarid areas of North India with a significant biomass supply as an additional benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing responsiveness to anthropogenic climate change and the loss of global shellfish ecosystems has heightened interest in the carbon storage and sequestration potential of bivalve‐dominated systems. While coastal ecosystems are dynamic zones of carbon transformation and change, current uncertainties and notable heterogeneity in the benthic environment make it difficult to ascertain the climate change mitigation capacity of ongoing coastal restoration projects aimed at revitalizing benthic bivalve populations. In this study we sought to distinguish between direct and indirect effects of subtidal green‐lipped mussels (Perna canaliculus) on carbon cycling, and combined published literature with in‐situ experiments from restored beds to create a carbon budget for New Zealand's shellfish restoration efforts. A direct summation of biogenic calcification, community respiration, and sediment processes suggests a moderate carbon efflux (+100.1 to 179.6 g C m−2 year−1) occurs as a result of recent restoration efforts, largely reflective of the heterotrophic nature of bivalves. However, an examination of indirect effects of restoration on benthic community metabolism and sediment dynamics suggests that beds achieve greater carbon fixation rates and support enhanced carbon burial compared to nearby sediments devoid of mussels. We discuss limitations to our first‐order approximation and postulate how the significance of mussel restoration to carbon‐related outcomes likely increases over longer timescales. Coastal restoration is often conducted to support the provisioning of many ecosystem services, and we propose here that shellfish restoration not be used as a single measure to offset carbon dioxide emissions, but rather used in tandem with other initiatives to recover a bundle of valued ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article illustrates how necessity (especially income), nostalgia, and nationalism are three of the driving forces behind the existence of an entire fleet of aged American automobiles in modern Cuba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]