![]() ![]() ![]() The outcome measures in the database related to the recovery metric ‘organism abundance’ included measurements of density, biomass, cover and basal area of trees, shrubs, grasses and algae, and measurements of density of birds, fish and invertebrates. We also included hurricanes as an example of a natural disturbance for reference. Data collection was restricted to six major ecosystem categories (forests, grasslands, wetlands, rivers, lakes and marine ecosystems), eight anthropogenic disturbance categories (agricultural transformation, logging, mining, invasive species, eutrophication, hydrological disruption, overfishing and oil spills or combinations of them) and four recovery metrics (organism abundance, species richness, carbon cycling and nitrogen cycling). We found data from 3,035 sampling plots from 348 published primary studies covering a total study area >550,000 km 2 ( Supplementary Figs 1 and 2, Supplementary References and Supplementary Table 1). Under such circumstances, increasing the quantity of less-functional ecosystems through ecological restoration and offsetting are inadequate alternatives to ecosystem protection. Our results suggest that recovering and restored ecosystems have less abundance, diversity and cycling of carbon and nitrogen than ‘undisturbed’ ecosystems, and that even if complete recovery is reached, an interim recovery debt will accumulate. Our results are consistent across biomes but not across degrading factors. Compared with reference levels, recovering ecosystems run annual deficits of 46–51% for organism abundance, 27–33% for species diversity, 32–42% for carbon cycling and 31–41% for nitrogen cycling. Here we use data from 3,035 sampling plots worldwide, to quantify the interim reduction of biodiversity and functions occurring during the recovery process (that is, the ‘recovery debt’). As ecosystems progress through recovery, it is important to estimate any resulting deficit in biodiversity and functions. Ecosystem recovery from anthropogenic disturbances, either without human intervention or assisted by ecological restoration, is increasingly occurring worldwide.
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