SynthesisEcology letters2022
Terrestrial ecosystem restoration increases biodiversity and reduces its variability, but not to reference levels: A global meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Ecology letters, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A Global Review of Salt Marsh Restoration: Why Simpler, Context-Specific Strategies Can Outperform Complex Approaches.Global change biology · 2026Pooled it
- Terrestrial ecosystem restoration increases biodiversity and reduces its variability, but not to reference levels: A global meta-analysis.Ecology letters · 2022Pooled it
- Restoration transforms coastal wetland ecosystem services over time.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Functional metabolite signatures reveal biochemical recovery trajectories in oil-polluted soils undergoing bioremediation.Biodegradation · 2026Article
- Divergent patterns of richness and density in the global soil seed bank.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Large-scale experimental evaluation of woody plant removal in desert grassland: Restoration, novelty, or degradation?Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Taxonomic filtering accompanies functional expansion during long-term soil restoration.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Tardigrade communities in pristine, drained and restored pine mire forests.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- The Roles of Space and Food-Web Complexity in Mediating Ecological Recovery.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Divergent community assembly processes and multifunctionality contributions of abundant and rare soil bacteria during a 53-year restoration in the Tengger Desert, China.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Geography and availability of natural habitat determine whether cropland intensification or expansion is more detrimental to biodiversity.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Regional Processes Mediate Ecological Selection and the Distribution of Plant Diversity Across Scales.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Same data, different analysts: variation in effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and evolutionary biology.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Species-habitat networks reveal conservation implications that other community analyses do not detect.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2025Article
- Article
- Increasing Ages ofMicroorganisms · 2024Article
- Restoration of forestry-drained boreal peatland ecosystems can effectively stop and reverse ecosystem degradation.Communications earth & environment · 2024Article
- A landscape persistence-based methodological framework for assessing ecological stability.Environmental science and ecotechnology · 2024Article
- Promoting effects of soil C and N and limiting effect of soil P jointly determine the plant diversity during the aerial seeding restoration process in Mu Us sandy land, China.Frontiers in plant science · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Ecological restoration projects often have variable and unpredictable outcomes, and these can limit the overall impact on biodiversity. Previous syntheses have investigated restoration effectiveness by comparing average restored conditions to average conditions in unrestored or reference systems. Here, we provide the first quantification of the extent to which restoration affects both the mean and variability of biodiversity outcomes, through a global meta-analysis of 83 terrestrial restoration studies. We found that, relative to unrestored (degraded) sites, restoration actions increased biodiversity by an average of 20%, while decreasing the variability of biodiversity (quantified by the coefficient of variation) by an average of 14%. As restorations aged, mean biodiversity increased and variability decreased relative to unrestored sites. However, restoration sites remained, on average, 13% below the biodiversity of reference (target) ecosystems, and were characterised by higher (20%) variability. The lower mean and higher variability in biodiversity at restored sites relative to reference sites remained consistent over time, suggesting that sources of variation (e.g. prior land use, restoration practices) have an enduring influence on restoration outcomes. Our results point to the need for new research confronting the causes of variability in restoration outcomes, and close variability and biodiversity gaps between restored and reference conditions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.