title: Facilitation shifts paradigms and can amplify coastal restoration efforts.
abstract: Restoration has been elevated as an important strategy to reverse the decline of coastal wetlands worldwide. Current practice in restoration science emphasizes minimizing competition between out-planted propagules to maximize planting success. This paradigm persists despite the fact that foundational theory in ecology demonstrates that positive species interactions are key to organism success under high physical stress, such as recolonization of bare substrate. As evidence of how entrenched this restoration paradigm is, our survey of 25 restoration organizations in 14 states in the United States revealed that >95% of these agencies assume minimizing negative interactions (i.e., competition) between outplants will maximize propagule growth. Restoration experiments in both Western and Eastern Atlantic salt marshes demonstrate, however, that a simple change in planting configuration (placing propagules next to, rather than at a distance from, each other) results in harnessing facilitation and increased yields by 107% on average. Thus, small adjustments in restoration design may catalyze untapped positive species interactions, resulting in significantly higher restoration success with no added cost. As positive interactions between organisms commonly occur in coastal ecosystems (especially in more physically stressful areas like uncolonized substrate) and conservation resources are limited, transformation of the coastal restoration paradigm to incorporate facilitation theory may enhance conservation efforts, shoreline defense, and provisioning of ecosystem services such as fisheries production.
authors.affiliation: Division of Marine Science and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Beaufort, NC 28516; brian.silliman@duke.edu.
authors.forename: Brian R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Silliman
authors.affiliation: Division of Marine Science and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Beaufort, NC 28516;
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Schrack
authors.affiliation: Division of Marine Science and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Beaufort, NC 28516;
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Division of Marine Science and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Beaufort, NC 28516;
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cope
authors.affiliation: Division of Marine Science and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Beaufort, NC 28516;
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Santoni
authors.affiliation: Aquatic Ecology and Environmental Biology Group, Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Radboud University, 6525 AJ Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, 9700 CC Groningen, The Netherlands;
authors.forename: Tjisse
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: van der Heide
authors.affiliation: Troop 138, Boy Scouts of America, Tampa Bay, FL 33612;
authors.forename: Ralph
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jacobi
authors.affiliation: Troop 138, Boy Scouts of America, Tampa Bay, FL 33612;
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jacobi
authors.affiliation: Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, 9700 CC Groningen, The Netherlands; Spatial Ecology Department, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), 4401NT 7 Yerseke, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van de Koppel
mesh_terms: D001267:Atlantic Ocean; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D017753:Ecosystem; D014481:United States
keywords: coastal wetlands; facilitation; shoreline defense; wetland restoration