Indigenous invertebrate components in ecological restoration in agricultural landscapes

Abstract

The challenge of community restoration is to understand and exploit the principles of ecological succession at all seral stages, by complementing and accelerating the processes of colonisation and regeneration. The main aim is to construct self-sustaining, appropriate communities, connected in the landscape, that meet conservation, landscape and crop production goals. Research, to date, has been biased towards the plant and soil components with little consideration for the animal element. We discuss the importance of this missing component, put forward our belief that it is essential for enhancing landscape biodiversity, given that invertebrates provide the bulk of the biodiversity in New Zealand, and ensure that many ecological functions are performed. We suggest that restoration is an ideal model system for testing succession theory.