Opportunities, research gaps, and risks in allogenic ecosystem engineer mimicry.

ABSTRACT: In an age of anthropogenically driven species loss and increasingly novel ecosystems, ecosystem engineer restoration is a process-based approach to supporting ecosystem function. Many ecosystem engineers have low or declining population sizes. When feasibility and costs impede reintroduction of ecosystem engineers, an alternative may be artificial mimicry of ecosystem engineer structures. Research on mimicry of autogenetic ecosystem engineers, whose physical structure shapes habitat availability and complexity (e.g., tropical corals whose hard skeletons create complex reefs that provide habitat), spans many process scales. However, mimicry of allogenic ecosystem engineers, which shape habitat availability through their behavior (e.g., beavers building dams that influence hydrology), is les

SUBMITTER: Goss B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12309658 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature