Using ecosystem engineers to restore ecological systems.

Journal Article (Journal Article)

Ecosystem engineers affect other organisms by creating, modifying, maintaining or destroying habitats. Despite widespread recognition of these often important effects, the ecosystem engineering concept has yet to be widely used in ecological applications. Here, we present a conceptual framework that shows how consideration of ecosystem engineers can be used to assess the likelihood of restoration of a system to a desired state, the type of changes necessary for successful restoration and how restoration efforts can be most effectively partitioned between direct human intervention and natural ecosystem engineers.

Full Text

Duke Authors

Cited Authors

  • Byers, JE; Cuddington, K; Jones, CG; Talley, TS; Hastings, A; Lambrinos, JG; Crooks, JA; Wilson, WG

Published Date

  • September 2006

Published In

Volume / Issue

  • 21 / 9

Start / End Page

  • 493 - 500

PubMed ID

  • 16806576

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1872-8383

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0169-5347

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1016/j.tree.2006.06.002

Language

  • eng