In restoration ecology, the reference ecosystem represents a key concept which is well defined from a theoretical point of view. In practice, however, selecting reference systems, such as reference plant communities, often lacks clear methodology. In order to facilitate this selection, we provide a framework based on ecological theory, and more precisely on relationships between vegetation and environmental factors, to identify reference plant communities. The four major steps are: (1) the delimitation of a geographical zone in which habitat types similar to restoration sites occur; (2) the identification of environmental factors structuring non‐degraded plant communities within this geographical zone; (3) the comparison of the environmental factors between non‐degraded and degraded sites; and (4) the selection of the non‐degraded sites most similar to restoration sites in terms of environmental factors to use them as references. We concept‐proved our approach by identifying reference communities using environmental factor combinations for five mountain grassland sites degraded by the construction of a high‐voltage line. In a multivariate analysis of 18 non‐degraded sites, we identified six major environmental factors explaining plant species compositions. A second multivariate analysis including degraded sites provided environmental distances of the 18 non‐degraded to each of the degraded sites. The results demonstrated that the environmentally most similar sites were not necessarily the geographically closest ones. In conclusion, the analysis of regional plant–environment interactions provides an important tool to identify reference communities or source sites for seed transfer if not available adjacent to degraded habitats.

中文翻译：

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在生态恢复中确定参考社区：利用环境条件驱动植被组成

在恢复生态学中，参考生态系统代表了一个关键概念，从理论的角度来看，这个概念已得到很好的定义。然而，实际上，选择参考系统（例如参考植物群落）通常缺乏明确的方法。为了促进这种选择，我们提供了一个基于生态理论的框架，更确切地说是基于植被与环境因素之间的关系的框架，以识别参考植物群落。四个主要步骤是：（1）划定一个与恢复地点类似的栖息地类型的地理区域；（2）确定构成该地理区域内未退化植物群落的环境因素；（3）未退化土地和退化土地之间环境因素的比较；（4）从环境因素的角度选择与退化地点最相似的非退化地点作为参考。我们通过使用环境因素组合来识别因高压线路建设而退化的五个高山草地站点的参考社区，从而对方法进行了概念验证。在对18个未退化地点的多变量分析中，我们确定了解释植物物种组成的六个主要环境因素。第二次多变量分析包括降解位点，提供了18个未降解位点到每个降解位点的环境距离。结果表明，环境上最相似的站点不一定是地理上最接近的站点。结论，