Ecosystem response to interventions: lessons from restored and created wetland ecosystems

1. Current efforts to restore and create ecosystems require greater understanding of ecosystems’ responses to commonly used physical and biological intervention approaches to overcome ecological and technological limitations. 2. We estimated effect sizes from measurements of biotic assemblage structure and biogeochemical functions at 628 restored and created wetlands globally, in comparison with 499 reference wetlands. We studied the recovery trajectories of wetlands where different restoration or creation approaches were used under different environmental settings. 3. Although the variance explained by a linear mixed-effects models was low (6–7%), the study of recovery trajectories showed that the restoration or creation approach had no significant effects in most environmental settings. 4. In particular, wetlands where surface modification and flow re-establishment were used followed similar recovery trajectories regardless of whether they were revegetated or not. We even found potent...