Data: The landscape of plant community metrics and ecosystem services in global grassland restoration studies and future needs

Published: 11 June 2026| Version 1 | DOI: 10.17632/znfnb3swz6.1
Contributors:
Alicia Foxx,
,
,
,
, Regina Mae Francia,
,
,
,
,

Description

Restoration offers an opportunity to revitalize degraded ecosystems and populations and ensure that species have habitats in which to thrive and essential ecological functions continue. This also results in improving the health, resiliency, and stability of both human societies and our planetary systems at large. Despite the growth of restoration over the last three decades, grasslands remain among the most threatened ecosystems, with 40-49% globally suffering from degradation. We conducted a systematic review to determine how researchers quantified management actions, community metrics, ecosystem functions, and services (including cultural ecosystem services). Our study reviewed 405 articles on grassland restorations published between 1988-2024. Most papers used only one management action for restoration (47%), which was most often propagule addition (12%); however, a quarter combined between three and five management actions (25%). Major taxonomic groups were animals, plants, and microbes such as bacteria and fungi, with two-thirds of studies reporting species richness (64%), followed by composition (60%) and abundance/evenness (53%). Diversity indices were reported in 36% of studies and these outcomes were consistent across the 34 countries we studied. Productivity (29%), biogeochemical cycling (25%), and soil formation/stability (14%) were the most commonly measured ecosystem functions. Only 36 studies (9%) reported metrics of ecosystem services, and of these, only 9 studies reported a cultural ecosystem service metric (2%), including cultural heritage value, educational value, recreational use, aesthetic value, and sense of place. Given research gaps, we recommend further study in soil ecosystems, responses of vertebrates, and the measurement and implementation of cultural ecosystem services, so that ecological restoration can maintain the ecosystem services essential to human lives. We also recommend more opportunities for practitioners and scientists to work together in restoration planning and execution, and to better align techniques and metrics used to study restoration “success,” reimagining for whom restoration is conducted.

Files

Steps to reproduce

Steps to reproduce can be found in the README file utilizing the included files

Institutions

Categories

Ecological Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Grassland, Species Diversity

Funders

  • Chicago Botanic Garden Synthesis for Conservation and Restoration
  • Northwestern University Baker Faculty grant
  • U.S. National Science Foundation
    Government of the United States of America
    Alexandria
    Grant ID: DEB 2016322

Licence