The research highlight ‘Biomes bounce back’ in Nature (459:755) about an article published in PLoS ONE (4, e5653) reports that “ecosystems damaged by human activities […] may be quicker to recover than was thought”:
“Holly Jones and Oswald Schmitz at Yale University found that even severely damaged ecosystems could recover within decades” and “the longest average recovery time — found to be taken by forest ecosystems — was no more than 56 years.”
It would have been more correct to write “the longest average recovery time observed in their dataset of 240 scientific studies”, because many ecosystems take much, much longer to recover after disturbance. There is absolutely no way for a primary (tropical) forest to recover in 56 years after being logged. The same is most likely the case for shallow water coral reefs, after being bleached, shelled or lifted after an earthquake. If the disturbance caused local, regional or global extinctions, recovery times may even approach infinity, as the original ecosystem will never recover.
This reminds me of the earlier buzz stories of ‘rainforests claiming back deforested land at amazing speeds’, a report initially sent out by the Smithsonian and widely covered by the media with much too positive perspectives1. True, trees will recolonize land once it is abandoned, and yes, secondary forest may develop within a few decades, but that does not provide evidence for the recovery of the original ecosystem.
1 See also the NY Times
Why don’t you report what was said correctly?
“many ecosystems take much, much longer to recover after disturbance. "
but compare with (from the abstract, emphasis mine)
“We provide startling evidence that most ecosystems globally can, given human will, recover from very major perturbations on timescales of decades to half-centuries.”
Unless you have some peer-reviewed research to back up your assertions?
I am reporting the research highlight, not so much the PLoS study (except for Fig. 5).
Um, yes?
Apart from anything else, the RH has about 50 words in which to summarise the paper.
Many ecosystems may recover, to a certain extent, even after major disturbances. What I missed in the RH is a more explicit form of caution, like the words highlighted in the original abstract posted in the comment by RPG above. The problem with good news items (i.e. reporting only the positive effect and not the limitations) is that they could be misunderstood. If one reads “They discovered that the longest average recovery time — found to be taken by forest ecosystems — was no more than 56 years”, one could easily jump to the conclusion: “Logging of the rainforest? It doesn’t really matter, because it will grow back in about 50 years anyway.”
And, in the very interesting issue of Science on Restoration Ecology of July 31 (20089), Roberts, Stone and Skugden bring a similar message:
In a Perspective, Palmer and Filoso (p. 575) caution that it is unlikely to lead to the full recovery of the biodiversity and ecosystem services of undisturbed systems.
A meta-analysis by Rey Benayas et al., published on Science Express this week, confirms this view but shows that well-done restoration consistently enhances biodiversity and ecosystem services.