ecosystem-restoration
Ecosystem restoration is the practice of actively rehabilitating degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems to recover their ecological function and biodiversity. For plant science, it is a critical applied field that draws on knowledge of plant ecology, physiology, and community dynamics to reestablish native vegetation, rebuild soil-plant relationships, and guide successional processes. Successful restoration depends on understanding plant stress responses, seed biology, and species interactions, making it both a practical tool for reversing habitat loss and a rich domain for botanical research.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-04-01
Scientists are calling for soil microbes to be treated as a key restoration target, not just a side effect of recovery. Damaged ecosystems may never fully heal their microbial communities on their own, and without those microbes, plant communities struggle to bounce back.
Microbial communities in disturbed soils do not reliably recover on their own, even after decades of natural regrowth — overturning a long-held assumption in restoration ecology.
Adding specific beneficial microbes to restoration sites can meaningfully improve plant diversity and ecosystem functioning, suggesting active microbial inoculation as a viable restoration tool.
Critical knowledge gaps remain, including how climate change will reshape global soil microbiomes and whether microbial restoration interventions could produce unintended off-target effects.