A reference ecosystem, also known as an ecological reference, is a "

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

of organisms able to act as a model or benchmark for restoration." Reference ecosystems usually include

remnant natural area A remnant natural area, also known as remnant habitat, is an ecological community containing native flora and fauna that has not been significantly disturbed by destructive activities such as agriculture, logging, pollution, development, fire su ...

s that have not been degraded by human activities such as

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, trucksdevelopment Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development (music), the process by which thematic material is reshaped * Photographic development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting * Development hell, when a proje ...

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion re ...

suppression, or non-native species invasion. Reference ecosystems are ideally complete with natural flora, fauna,

abiotic In biology and ecology, abiotic components or abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems. Abiotic factors and the phenomena associated with them und ...

elements, ecological functions, processes, and successional states. Multiple reference ecosystems may be pieced together to form the model upon which an ecological restoration project may be based.

References

Ecological restoration Conservation biology Ecology terminology Habitats Ecosystems {{ecology-stub