DOI: 10.5061/dryad.rj849k6
title: Data from: Restoration and repair of Earth's damaged ecosystems

description: Given that few ecosystems on Earth have been unaffected by humans,
 restoring them holds great promise for stemming the biodiversity crisis
 and ensuring ecosystem services are provided to humanity. Nonetheless, few
 studies have documented the recovery of ecosystems globally or the rates
 at which ecosystems recover. Even fewer have addressed the added benefit
 of actively restoring ecosystems versus allowing them to recover without
 human intervention following the cessation of a disturbance. Our meta
 analysis of 400 studies worldwide that document recovery from large-scale
 disturbances, such as oil spills, agriculture, and logging, suggests that
 though ecosystems are progressing towards recovery following disturbances,
 they rarely recover completely. This result reinforces conservation of
 intact ecosystems as a key strategy for protecting biodiversity. Recovery
 rates slowed down with time since the disturbance ended, suggesting that
 the final stages of recovery are the most challenging to achieve. Active
 restoration did not result in faster or more complete recovery than simply
 ending the disturbances ecosystems face. Our results on the added benefit
 of restoration must be interpreted cautiously, because few studies
 directly compared different restoration actions in the same location after
 the same disturbance. The lack of consistent value added of active
 restoration following disturbance suggests that passive recovery should be
 considered as a first option; if recovery is slow then active restoration
 actions should be better tailored to overcome specific obstacles to
 recovery and achieve restoration goals. We call for more strategic
 investment of limited restoration resources into innovative collaborative
 efforts between scientists, local communities, and practitioners to
 develop restoration techniques that are ecologically, economically, and
 socially viable.
description: Restoration and recovery
 studies metadataIncluded in this file
 are all of the data from restoration studies used by the paper
 "Restoration and repair of Earth's damaged ecosystems."
 Columns include: ID - identifier number for each RV, Citation - the study
 data were taken from, RV - the variable measured, LifeFormBroad - the type
 of organism/function measured by the RV, MetricType - what type of
 measurement, Metric.for.merge - used to merge datasets, not used in
 analysis, HabitatCat - habitat category, DisturbCat - disturbance
 category, AllActivities - what type of restoration activity was used,
 ActiveRes - whether or not restoration was active, Goal - reference point
 for RV, Goal.upper.error.bar - upper error value for reference point,
 Goal.lower.error.bar - lower error value for reference point,
 Goal.type.of.error - type of error statistic used for reference point,
 Goal.Sample.size - sample size of Goal RV, Start - value of RV at the
 start of the study, Start.upper.error.bar - upper error value for Start
 value, Start.lower.error.bar - lower error value for start value,
 Start.type.of.error - type of error statistic used for Start, End- value
 of RV at the end of the study, End.upper.error.bar - upper error value for
 End value, End.lower.error.bar - lower error value for End value,
 End.type.of.error - type of error statistic used for End, End.Sample.size
 - sample size of End, TimeSince - time since disturbance ended, VID -
 internally used ID number, CID - internally used ID number, FineMetric -
 more specific type of measurement, CurrentMetricType - type of measurement
 used in analysis, Year.start.data.were.taken - as described,
 Year.end.data.were.taken - as described, Year.perturbation.ended - year
 the disturbance in the study ended, Control - what type of reference was
 used by the study, DisturbDurat_yrs - how long the disturbance lasted in
 years, Latitude - latitude of study site, Longitude - longitude of study
 site, ResponseRatio - response ratio of the RV, Resilience - recovery rate
 of the RV, asinhResilience - arcsin-h transformed recovery rate of the RV,
 absLat - absolute value of Latitude, distMag - disturbance magnitude of
 RV, PA - restoration type (passive/active) of the RV, ln_distMag - natural
 log of disturbance magnitude of RV, Recovered - whether or not the
 ResponseRatio of the RV was &gt; 0.latdata.csv