Global declines of foundation species have reduced ecological function at population, community, and ecosystem levels. Restoration of foundation species promises to counter such losses, despite unknown recovery timelines, undefined benchmarks, and uncertainty about whether restored ecosystems approximate natural ones. Here, we demonstrate through a 15-year large-scale experiment in coastal Virginia, USA, that restored oyster reefs can quickly recover multiple ecological functions and match natural reefs. Specifically, abundances of oysters and a key crab mesopredator on restored reefs equaled reference reefs in approximately 6 years, indicating that restoration can initiate rapid, sustained recovery of foundation species and associated consumers. As reefs matured and accrued biomass, they became more temporally stable, suggesting that restoration can increase resilience and may stabilize those ecosystem processes that scale with foundation species biomass. Together, these results demonstrate that restoration can catalyze rapid recovery of imperiled coastal foundation species, reclaim lost community interactions, and help reverse decades of degradation.

中文翻译：

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十年内恢复的牡蛎礁与天然礁的多种功能相匹配

全球基础物种的减少降低了种群、群落和生态系统层面的生态功能。尽管恢复时间表未知、基准未定义以及恢复的生态系统是否接近自然生态系统的不确定性，但基础物种的恢复有望抵消这种损失。在这里，我们通过在美国弗吉尼亚州沿海进行的为期 15 年的大规模实验证明，修复后的牡蛎礁可以快速恢复多种生态功能，与天然礁石相匹配。具体来说，在大约 6 年内，修复后的珊瑚礁上的牡蛎和主要螃蟹中食性动物的丰度与参考珊瑚礁相当，这表明修复可以启动基础物种和相关消费者的快速、持续恢复。随着珊瑚礁的成熟和生物量的积累，它们在时间上变得更加稳定，表明恢复可以增加复原力，并可以稳定那些与基础物种生物量成比例的生态系统过程。总之，这些结果表明，恢复可以促进濒临灭绝的沿海基础物种的快速恢复，恢复失去的群落互动，并帮助扭转数十年的退化。