摘要
Introduction:The Regent Honeyeater Project commenced ecological restoration in the Lurg district in 1994,with an aim to restore habitats for the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater Anthochaera phrygia and a range of other threatened and declining species.Within this context,our study aimed to explore whether plant reproduction can be an effective measure of ecological restoration success.Methods:Evaluation involved comparing attributes at unrestored,restored and remnant sites to establish whether sites displayed evidence of a clear restoration trajectory.Five age classes(unrestored,4–6 years old,8–10 years old,12–14 years old and remnant areas)and two landforms(upper hills and lower hills)were considered.The diversity of woody plant species—which have easily recognisable reproductive material and which all recruit seedlings—provides easily measured parameters that have the potential to allow the determination of early establishment success and long-term ecological development of restored ecosystems.Results:Restoration plantings developed in a hybrid state towards a benchmark in the lower hills;seedling species composition differed significantly among age classes,increasing in similarity with time since restoration,with some divergence from the target pathway.Composition of functional groups with reproductive outputs was also significantly different among age classes;however,a restoration trajectory was only evident in the upper hills where sites converged towards the target goal.Conclusions:Divergence or deviation from the restoration trajectory was not deemed to be a restoration failure,as the variety of functional groups with fruits and diversity of seedlings recruiting indicated a potential increase in resilience in the future due to greater variability across the landscape.Plant recruitment was effective in detecting development trends towards a restoration target in this study and therefore may be a useful measure that contributes to determining ecological restoration success.
基金
Authors would like to thank Ray Thomas of the Regent Honeyeater Project for his willingness to provide access to project file notes and maps.We thank Dale Robinson,John Miller,Lucinda Monie,Kim Magnay,Tim D’Ombrain,Jacqui Monie and Belinda Taylor for their help in the field.We thank landholders in the Lurg district for allowing us to work on their properties.We also thank Tony Wilson and Tricia Wevill for statistical techniques.We thank Drs.Patrick Audet(The University of Queensland,Queensland)and Michael Perring(University of Western Australia,Perth)for providing constructive feedback on the earlier versions of our manuscript.The financial support was provided by The Regional Futures Grant,University of Ballarat.
