Soil Health to Enhance Ecological Restoration and Conservation

Ecological restoration has gained increased attention to combat the global biodiversity and habitat loss driven by human activities and climate change. To address these impacts, restoration efforts apply interventions aimed at recovering native ecosystems on degraded lands. However, they tend to centre on vegetation‐based interventions, with limited attention to aboveground and belowground linkages. Soil health, including its physicochemical, biological and functional attributes, is fundamental to ecosystem resilience and sustainability, provision of services, and human well‐being. This synthesis explores how a deeper understanding of soil‐vegetation interactions can support restoration and conservation efforts. We discuss how restoration interventions can be applied from early to later stages of restoration, future directions and novel approaches that target aboveground and belowground processes to promote soil health and successful plant community establishment. We propose that integrating practices that explicitly consider linkages among vegetation, soil properties and biota can lead to more effective restoration outcomes and the establishment of resilient, self‐sustaining ecosystems.

• Publication year

  2024

• Venue

  Journal of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment

• Publication date

  2024-10-01

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1002/sae2.70022
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• Integrating practices that explicitly consider linkages among vegetation, soil properties, and biota can lead to more effective restoration outcomes and the establishment of resilient, self-sustaining ecosystems.

  Confidence 0.95

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• Restoration efforts tend to center on vegetation-based interventions with limited attention to aboveground and belowground linkages.

  Confidence 0.90

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• ecological restoration

  process

  The application of interventions aimed at recovering native ecosystems on degraded lands.

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• soil health

  ecosystem attribute

  The physicochemical, biological, and functional attributes of soil that are fundamental to ecosystem resilience and sustainability.

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• soil-vegetation interactions

  relationship

  The linkages between aboveground plant communities and belowground soil properties and biota.

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• vegetation-based interventions

  approach

  Restoration efforts that primarily focus on aboveground vegetation recovery.

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