![]() Traditional attempts to design optimal restoration strategies have focused on single-species 17, suitable habitat identification 18, prioritization of sites that maximize spatial rescue effects in communities interconnected by dispersal 19, or have used low-dimensional models with a few interacting components 20. Here, we seek to determine whether such a generalizable restoration strategy can be developed based on the network topology of ecosystems and the underlying dynamics of interacting species following perturbations of different magnitudes 14, 15.Īlthough returning a severely degraded ecosystem to its original state can be difficult, it remains a key goal for many conservation and restoration projects 12, 16. However, it remains to be seen whether a single universal restoration strategy can be generalized across disparate ecosystems to maximize multiple key criteria such as persistence, total species abundance, and faster stabilization after species reintroduction. If ecosystems tend to collapse in the same manner, it is reasonable to expect a similar universal pattern of recovery, a phenomenon that could be used to design optimal restoration strategies. Recent theoretical studies have demonstrated that complex ecosystems consisting of many interacting species exhibit a universal pattern of system collapse 13. In the past decade, there has been an increase in ecological restoration efforts around the globe 2, 12. The challenge lies in assessing the criticality of each species at each step of the restoration process in order to optimize recovery across different ecosystems. These properties suggest that sequentially restoring the most critical species and their interactions in the network may promote recovery 10, strengthen resilience, and increase functioning 11. The loss of even one species can cause a ripple effect and lead to secondary extinctions that compromise the entire system’s stability 8, 9. Mutualistic networks are particularly vulnerable to ecosystem degradation, as their stability depends on a set of strongly interdependent species and interactions 6, 7. However, reversing declining trends in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning requires an understanding of how to preserve ecosystem integrity 4 or, if already severely degraded, restore species and their functions to their original state 5. ![]() Restoring degraded ecosystems is crucial in an era of rapid global change 1, 2, 3.
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