Restoration ecology commonly seeks to re-establish species of interest in degraded habitats. Despite a rich understanding of how succession influences re-establishment, there are several outstanding questions that remain unaddressed: are short-term abundances sufficient to determine long-term re-establishment success, and what factors contribute to unpredictable restorations outcomes? In other words, when restoration fails, is it because the restored habitat is substandard, because of strong competition with invasive species, or alternatively due to changing environmental conditions that would equally impact established populations? Here, we re-purpose tools developed from modern coexistence theory to address these questions, and apply them to an effort to restore the endangered Contra Costa goldfields (Lasthenia conjugens) in constructed (“restored”) California vernal pools. Using 16 years of data, we construct a population model of L. conjugens, a species of conservation concern due primarily to habitat loss and invasion of exotic grasses. We show that initial, short-term appearances of restoration success from population abundances is misleading, as year-to-year fluctuations cause long-term population growth rates to fall below zero. The failure of constructed pools is driven by lower maximum growth rates compared with reference (“natural”) pools, coupled with a stronger negative sensitivity to annual fluctuations in abiotic conditions that yield decreased maximum growth rates. Nonetheless, our modeling shows that fluctuations in competition (mainly with exotic grasses) benefit L. conjugens through periods of competitive release, especially in constructed pools of intermediate pool depth. We therefore show how reductions in invasives and seed addition in pools of particular depths could change the outcome of restoration for L. conjugens. By applying a largely theoretical framework to the urgent goal of ecological restoration, our study provides a blueprint for predicting restoration success, and identifies future actions to reverse species loss.

中文翻译：

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现代共存理论在稀有植物恢复中的应用提供了恢复轨迹的早期指示

恢复生态学通常寻求在退化的栖息地重建感兴趣的物种。尽管对继承如何影响重建有深入的了解，但仍有几个悬而未决的问题尚未解决：短期丰度是否足以决定长期重建的成功，以及哪些因素会导致不可预测的恢复结果？换句话说，当恢复失败时，是因为恢复的栖息地不合标准，是因为与入侵物种的激烈竞争，还是因为环境条件的变化会同样影响已建立的种群？在这里，我们重新利用现代共存理论开发的工具来解决这些问题，并将它们应用于恢复濒临灭绝的康特拉科斯塔金矿 ( Lathenia conjugens) 在建造（“修复”）的加利福尼亚春季水池中。使用 16 年的数据，我们构建了L. conjugens的种群模型，这是一种主要由于栖息地丧失和外来草的入侵而受到保护的物种。我们表明，从人口丰度中恢复成功的初步、短期表现具有误导性，因为年复一年的波动导致长期人口增长率降至零以下。与参考（“自然”）池相比，构建池的失败是由较低的最大增长率驱动的，再加上对导致最大增长率降低的非生物条件的年度波动的更强的负敏感性。尽管如此，我们的模型表明竞争的波动（主要是外来草）有利于L. conjugens通过竞争释放期，特别是在中等水池深度的人工池中。因此，我们展示了在特定深度的池中减少侵入物和添加种子如何改变L. conjugens的恢复结果。通过将主要的理论框架应用于生态恢复的紧迫目标，我们的研究为预测​​恢复成功提供了蓝图，并确定了扭转物种丧失的未来行动。