Human health and well-being benefits have increasingly been associated with contact with nature. However, limited research has focused on the influence of ecosystem type and quality on these outcomes. This paper reports on the results of an in-situ survey of 467 visitors to an Ontario protected area. Results revealed high overall restorative outcomes across all ecosystem types, with greater benefits reported for women than men. Perceived ecosystem quality, including species richness, naturalness, and ecological integrity, had the greatest impact on restorative outcomes, while the type of ecosystem and time spent had surprisingly little influence. Greater restorative outcomes for women were also associated with specific ecosystem types. The study advances our limited understanding of the nuanced relationship between human health and well-being outcomes and exposure to diverse ecosystems, and by extenstion the unique aspects of biodiversity and ecosystem condition that Canada’s protected areas exhibit.

人类健康和福祉的好处越来越多地与大自然接触。然而，有限的研究集中在生态系统类型和质量对这些结果的影响上。本文报告了对安大略保护区的467名游客的现场调查结果。结果表明，在所有生态系统类型中，总体恢复性结果都很高，据报告，女性比男性受益更多。感知到的生态系统质量，包括物种丰富性，自然性和生态完整性，对恢复结果的影响最大，而生态系统的类型和所花费的时间却几乎没有影响。妇女获得更大的恢复性成果还与特定的生态系统类型有关。