National Recovery Plan for the Littoral Rainforest and Coastal Vine Thickets of Eastern Australia Ecological Community
Sch AGlossary of terms
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Note 1: The glossary of terms is based on the ‘National Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration in Australia (SERA 2015).
Abiotic - non-living materials that sustain biota within a given ecosystem, including sailor substrate, the atmospheric or aqueous medium, weather and climate, topographic relief and aspect, the nutrient regime, hydrological regime, fire regime and salinity regime.
Approach, restoration - the category of treatment (i.e. natural regeneration, assisted regeneration or reconstruction).
Assisted regeneration - the practice of deliberately removing obstacles and reinstating conditions to foster natural regeneration and recolonization. Interventions may be tailored to improve regeneration niches, trigger resprouting and germination and foster colonization. While this approach generally is typical of sites of low to intermediate degradation, even some very highly degraded sites have proven capable of natural recovery given appropriate treatment and sufficient time frames.
Attributes, of an ecosystem - the biotic and abiotic properties and functions of an ecosystem (including physical conditions, species composition, community structure, ecosystem function, mitigation of threats and external exchanges).
Biotic, biota - the living components of an ecosystem, including animals and plants, fungi, bacteria and other forms of life (large to microscopic).
Carbon sequestration - the capture and long term storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide (typically in biomass by way of photosynthesis and tree growth) to reduce the impacts of climate change.
Climate envelope - the climate in which a species currently exists. During climate change and where conditions become hotter, this envelope will move further poleward. (Movement due to changes in precipitation are more complex.)
Composition, of an ecosystem - the array of component species, both plant and animal.
Construction - methods involved in building something that did not occur previously at that site - e.g. see 'reconstruction', 'creation' and 'fabrication'.
Creation - construction of a different ecosystem to that which previously occurred, due to permanently changed physical conditions. (See alternative terms 'Fabrication' and 'biome conversion'.)
Damage (to ecosystem) - a level of deleterious impact that causes loss of structure or function
Degradation (of an ecosystem) - a persistent decline in the structure, function and composition of an ecosystem compared to its former state.
Destruction (of an ecosystem) - complete removal or depletion of an ecosystem.
Ecological restoration - the intentional practice of assisting the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded, damaged or destroyed.
Schedule Sch A - National Recovery Plan for the Littoral Rainforest and Coastal Vine Thickets of Eastern Australia Ecological Community - Glossary of terms | Zoe
Ecological trajectory - a described pathway of development over time, which can be monitored by sequential measurements of biotic and abiotic ecological parameters.
Ecosystem - small or large scale assemblage of organisms (including plants animals, micro-organisms) together with non-living components (including the soil, water, air, fire, climate, topographic relief and aspect) that interact to form complex food webs, nutrient cycles and energy flows.
Ecosystem change - localised or broad scale change in ecosystem structure / composition / function including factors (such as climate, fire, flooding) and the responses of organisms to those factors. The term is also sometimes used to refer to more recent change caused by humans to the degree that these changes are now effectively irreversible.
Ecosystem services - are the benefits to humans provided by ecosystems. These include clean air, water and soils; as well as products and opportunities for recreation and the satisfaction of other human values. Restoration targets may specifically refer to the reinstatement of particular ecosystem goods or services
Five-star (5-star) recovery - a semi-quantitative rating system based on biotic and abiotic factors that provides comparative assessment in the achievement of a restored / rehabilitated state.
Fabrication - (also referred to as 'creation'). A rehabilitation approach, based on construction techniques, where the degree of degradation means current conditions are no longer suitable for the pre-existing ecosystem and a different, locally occurring ecosystem is the best alternative. (Note: This refers to shifts in whole communities rather than in an individual species).
Framework species - are those species from the reference ecosystem that can facilitate recovery or establishment of other species from the reference ecosystem. These can be from any stratum or successional phase.
Full recovery - the state whereby all ecosystem attributes are reinstated to reference ecosystem levels. A state of S-star recovery may not yet exhibit full recovery but is on a trajectory to full recovery without further repair-phase intervention.
Functions, of an ecosystem - the collective term for the roles and processes which arise from interactions between living and non-living components of ecosystems. Examples include nutrient cycling and sequestration (through biomass accumulation, food production, herbivory, predation and decomposition), water filtration and cycling, soil formation, succession, disturbance regimes (fire, flooding and drying), water filtration and storage, provision of habitat, predation, dispersal, reproduction, disturbance and resilience.
Indicators of recovery - characteristics of an ecosystem that a manager identifies as being suitable for measuring the progress of restoration goals or objectives at a particular site (e.g. measures of biotic or abiotic components of the ecosystem).
Local indigenous reference ecosystem - an ecosystem comprising taxa (excluding invasive non-indigenous species) that are either known to have existed in the local area for very long timeframes or, species from neighbouring localities that are recently migrating (or being assisted in their migration as a result of sound science) due to changing climates. Where local evidence is lacking, regional or historical information can help inform the most probable local indigenous ecosystems.
Maintenance (of an ecosystem) - activities intended to counteract processes of ecological degradation to sustain the attributes of an ecosystem. In a conservation management context this is directed to maintaining the attributes associated with its pre-impairment state, recognising the intrinsic values of natural systems, not merely their usefulness to humans.
Management (of an ecosystem) - a broad categorisation that can include maintenance and repair of ecosystems (including restoration).
Mandatory restoration - restoration that is required (mandated) by a government agency, court of law or statutory authority.
Mitigation - the activity of reducing impacts upon the environment to the highest practicable extent, to maintain potential for conservation of biodiversity while pursuing ecologically sustainable production and ecologically sustainable lifestyles.
Natural regeneration - recruitment of species on sites after removal of causes of damage (threats) alone. Natural regeneration can be intentionally adopted as a restoration approach.
Non-mandatory restoration - restoration that is voluntarily carried out rather than required (mandated) by a government agency, court of law or statutory authority.
Primary treatment - the first treatment of a site (e.g. removal of standing weed biomass), after which there will be subsequent follow up treatments referred to as 'secondary treatments'.
Reconstruction - a restoration approach where the pre-existing biota need to be entirely or almost entirely reintroduced as they cannot regenerate or recolonise within feasible timeframes, even after expert assisted regeneration interventions.
Recovery - the process of an ecosystem regaining its composition, structure and function relative to the levels identified for the reference ecosystem. As this can occur in full or in part, this term can apply to both ecological restoration and rehabilitation.
Reference ecosystem – a real or notional community of organisms able to act as a model or benchmark for restoration. A reference ecosystem usually represents a healthy version of the ecosystem complete with its flora, fauna, functions, processes and successional states that would have existed on the restoration site had degradation, damage or destruction not occurred - but it can be adjusted to suit changed current conditions.
Regeneration - see ‘natural regeneration’ and ‘assisted regeneration’.
Rehabilitation - the process of reinstating ecosystem functionality on degraded sites where ecological restoration is not the aspiration, to permit ongoing provision of ecosystem goods and services including support of biodiversity.
Restoration - see ‘ecological restoration’. The term ‘restoration’ is in common usage and can be used singly and in combination with other words to convey an intent to return something to a prior condition (e.g. restoring a species, a population or a particular ecosystem function such as carbon sequestration). Single species restoration can be considered complementary and an important component of ecological restoration.
Revegetation - actions to re-establish plants on sites / landscapes.
Site - discrete area/location. Can occur at different scales including patch and landscape.
Secondary treatment - the repeated follow-up treatments (e.g. to control weeds), required after primary treatment has triggered an ecological response.
Self-organising - a state whereby all the necessary elements are present and can now continue to develop without outside assistance. Self-organisation is evidenced by increasing plant size and biomass; reproduction; normal ratios between producers, herbivores, and predators; niche differentiation; and, overall increase in ecosystem complexity.
Self-referencing - referring to circumstances where degraded remnant vegetation serves as its own reference ecosystem.
Sod transfer - moving slabs or turves of herbaceous species and their substrate from a donor habitat to a receiving habitat.
Succession (ecological) - the process where species composition and abundances alter over time and space with later ‘seral’ stages dependent upon the composition and abundances of a prior state. Importantly for many of Australia’s most biodiverse ecosystems such as in the southwest Australian biodiversity hotspot, the climax community in terms of species composition is reflected in the immediate post-disturbance recruitment (under natural conditions this was usually after wildfire). Thus, restoration at the outset needs to reinstate as complete a species composition as is technically and practically feasible acknowledging that restoration may require ‘nurse species’ to amend soils or re-establish basic ecological processes (e.g. pollinators, hydrological processes etc).
Substrate - the soil, sand, rock, debris or water medium on or in which habitats develop.
Structure, of an ecosystem - the physical organization of an ecological system both within communities and at a landscape scale (e.g. density, stratification, and distribution of species populations, habitat size and complexity, forest canopy structure, pattern of habitat patches).
Threat - a factor causing degradation, damage or destruction (e.g. clearing, hydrological change, presence of invasive species, altered disturbance regimes).
Threshold (ecological) - a point at which external conditions causes a shift in an ecosystem property to a different state. Pushing that property over a threshold requires external assistance.
Translocation - moving organisms from a donor habitat to similar habitats in a different part of the landscape. Usually undertaken to secure conservation of the organisms.
Treatment - the particular interventions or actions undertaken to achieve restoration, such as substrate amendment, exotics control, habitat conditioning, reintroductions.