Poster Session II
Project Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Cara Nelson
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences
Abstract / Artist's Statement
Ecological restoration aims to restore degraded ecosystems to the condition they would have been in had degradation not occurred. A critical component of ecosystems is microbial communities, which regulate ecosystem functions such as respiration, nutrient cycling, and decomposition. Unfortunately, microbial communities can be easily overlooked in ecological restoration due to their small size and the need for specialized technical knowledge and equipment to investigate them. I conducted a systematic review of articles published in the journal Restoration Ecology between 1997 and 2022 to assess temporal trends in the frequency of articles on microbial communities and specific taxa. Mycorrhizae fungi were the most commonly studied taxa (47% of taxa-specific articles). A total of 164 Restoration Ecology articles focused on microbes, representing 4% of total publications, with no substantial variation over time. Fifteen articles were randomly sampled to assess restoration effects on microbes and their use as restoration interventions. The majority (60%) of articles assessed restoration impacts on microbes, while 33% explored microbes as a restoration intervention. Articles that assessed effects of treatments on microbes often quantified abundance, activity, and species richness, the most common outcome was an increase in all categories, though some were observed to be non-significant or decrease. This stocktaking of existing restoration ecology research, and the effects of restoration treatments, highlights that knowledge on microbes is limited, suggesting a critical need for additional research to improve restoration quality.
Category
Life Sciences
Inclusion and Responses of Microbial Communities in Ecological Restoration
UC South Ballroom
Ecological restoration aims to restore degraded ecosystems to the condition they would have been in had degradation not occurred. A critical component of ecosystems is microbial communities, which regulate ecosystem functions such as respiration, nutrient cycling, and decomposition. Unfortunately, microbial communities can be easily overlooked in ecological restoration due to their small size and the need for specialized technical knowledge and equipment to investigate them. I conducted a systematic review of articles published in the journal Restoration Ecology between 1997 and 2022 to assess temporal trends in the frequency of articles on microbial communities and specific taxa. Mycorrhizae fungi were the most commonly studied taxa (47% of taxa-specific articles). A total of 164 Restoration Ecology articles focused on microbes, representing 4% of total publications, with no substantial variation over time. Fifteen articles were randomly sampled to assess restoration effects on microbes and their use as restoration interventions. The majority (60%) of articles assessed restoration impacts on microbes, while 33% explored microbes as a restoration intervention. Articles that assessed effects of treatments on microbes often quantified abundance, activity, and species richness, the most common outcome was an increase in all categories, though some were observed to be non-significant or decrease. This stocktaking of existing restoration ecology research, and the effects of restoration treatments, highlights that knowledge on microbes is limited, suggesting a critical need for additional research to improve restoration quality.