Another way to look at expectation is that it defines not only th

Another way to look at expectation is that it defines not only the endpoint but also the mechanism of system change from the beginning to the endpoint (Burton, 2014, Dey and Schweitzer, 2014 and Stanturf et al., 2014). Endpoints develop from goals, which express social values; expectations must reflect social values because multiple states are possible for any part of the landscape (Burton, 2014). Goals of ecosystem health (Crow, 2014), ecological integrity (SERI, 2004 and Tierney et al., 2009), naturalness (Brumelis et al., 2011 and Winter, 2012), or conservation (Lindenmayer and Franklin, 2002) lead to their own set of expectations. No single

paradigm fits all conditions or social contexts but expectations should selleck be realistic in terms of project scope, goals, and available resources (Ehrenfeld, 2000). To further complicate matters, expectations can change over time as social preferences and policies change, as land use changes as a result of population shifts from rural to urban areas, or from the effects of altered climate. Expectations must express the mechanism for change, as well as the desired endpoint (Toth and Anderson, 1998). Different approaches include theory of change (Mascia et al., 2014),

state-transition models (Rumpff et al., 2011), and conceptual ecological models (Doren et al., 2009) nevertheless all describe some causal mechanism for change that purports to link restoration interventions to changes in the ecosystem. Progress must be measured by reference to explicit criteria based on strong inference that establishes the causal connection Capmatinib datasheet between intervention and change in baseline condition (Stringham et al., 2003, Suding et al., 2004 and Rumpff et al., 2011). Ecosystem components, however, differ in their temporal trajectories;

some change faster than others. For example, Stanturf et al. (2001) discussed different ways to assess restoration success in afforestation to reconstruct riverine Dimethyl sulfoxide broadleaves and described time to crown closure as one way to compare treatments (relatively fast change) versus accumulation of soil carbon (slow to change) in former agricultural sites. Parsing expectations into indicators of different components of the restored ecosystem allows consideration of intermediate states as well as progress toward the endpoint; restoration takes time and intermediate conditions must be considered for evaluating success (Paine et al., 1998, Oliver and O’Hara, 2005 and Swanson et al., 2010). The selection of end points for restoration based on historical or even contemporary reference conditions is increasingly recognized as difficult (Sprugel, 1991) if not futile, due to global change (Fulé, 2008, Ravenscroft et al., 2010 and Hiers et al., 2012). The climatic conditions that resulted in the development of extant ecosystems, or reference conditions based on historical information, are increasingly becoming less relevant.

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