Over the last several decades, the critical role that ecosystem restoration plays in mitigating environmental change, increasing food security, and improving political and economic stability has been cemented in numerous national and international agreements, policies, and programs.
Meeting this global restoration need, however, is widely viewed as one of the most long-standing and immense challenges of our time. The research, practice and outcomes of ecological restoration have long been viewed as salient tests of our understanding of how ecological systems work.
While our understanding of how ecological communities assemble, function and respond to perturbations has gradually progressed over the last several decades, in many cases this increased knowledge has not been readily incorporated into restoration practices or resulted in improved restoration outcomes.
This “virtual issue” of the Journal of Applied Ecology offers 20 free articles on the practice of ecological restoration and the science of restoration ecology.