Life cycle informed restoration: Engineering settlement substrate material characteristics and structural complexity for reef formation

Ecosystems are degrading world-wide, with severe ecological and economic consequences. Restoration is becoming an important tool to regain ecosystem services preserve biodiversity. However, in harsh ecosystems dominated by habitat-modifying organisms, restoration often expensive failure prone. Establishment of such habitat modifiers hinges on self-facilitation feedbacks generated traits that emerge when individuals aggregate, causing density- or patch size-dependent establishment thresholds. To overcome these thresholds, adult juvenile habitat-forming species transplanted clumped designs, stress-mitigating structures deployed. current approaches focus introducing facilitating a single life stage, while many experience multiple bottlenecks throughout their as they transition through sequential stages. Here, we define experimentally test ‘life cycle informed restoration’, concept focuses overcoming the target species’ lifetime. provide proof concept, show its general applicability, carried out complementary experiments intertidal soft-sediment systems Florida Netherlands where oysters mussels act reef-building modifiers. We used biodegradable designed facilitate bivalve reef recovery both stimulating settlement hard fibrous substrates post-settlement survival reducing predation. Our trans-Atlantic demonstrate enabled formation by: (a) larval recruitment via species-specific substrates, (b) enhancing lowering In Netherlands, coir rope most strongly facilitated providing substrate, predation-lowering spatially complex attachment substrate. Florida, were greatly proved unbeneficial. Synthesis applications. findings artificial reefs can enhance across Atlantic mimicking emergent ameliorate over reef-forming organism’ cycle. This highlights potential our approach cost-effective practical for nature managers restore whose natural hampered stage-dependent bottlenecks. Therefore, investment understanding how achieve larger scales whether method it applicable other now required.