Redundancy, Ecological

ECOLOGICAL REDUNDANCY REFERS to the concept that natural environments may contain more than one species of flora and fauna capable of performing various required ecological functions, not all of which are immediately obvious. Consequently, one of the important issues involved in restoring or managing ecosystems is to document all involved organisms and attempt to understand their ecological functions. However, this is rarely possible or practical and the result has been environmental degradation and failed restoration efforts in many cases.

The theory of ecological redundancy is controversial. It has been contested on various grounds, including the intuitive, which suggests that conservation of effort or of energy would be better served if species living in close proximity with each other had complementary functions rather than identical ones. If ...