ABSTRACT
While restoration ecology is probably best considered as a cross-scalar effort, its origins and practice are often firmly in the camps of the more disciplinary levels of domains like population ecology. When we use the term ‘cross-scalar’, we refer to the notion that ecosystem functions (processes like nutrient and water cycling or interactions between organisms and their environment) and structures (the genetic and species diversity of organisms or the size and physiognomy of habitats) are not definable or restricted to molecular, population, community, landscape, or ecological regime domains. One recent paper that captures this nicely is Rose et al. (2015). They examined cross-scalar ecological restoration impacts on fish populations and communities in the context of ecological modelling (a topic of much discussion in this chapter). Their main message was that successful restoration ecology starts with an understanding and communication of the major steps involved at different scales – population, community, and landscape – and they fulfilled a much more ambitious objective of discussing all of these in terms of best practices for management within restoration ecology. We will restrict ourselves here to population scales, but that context by Rose et al. (ibid.) is what ultimately drives these discussions.
