Ecosystem Restoration Biotechnology

Ecosystem degradation is a global crisis. Decades of intensive land use, pollution, climate change, and invasive species have left vast areas of Earth in need of restoration. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) calls for the restoration of billions of hectares of land and marine ecosystems — a challenge that demands both political will and effective technical approaches. Biotechnology offers increasingly sophisticated tools to support this effort.

Restoration is not simply planting trees or replanting wetlands. It is the recovery of ecosystem structure, function, and composition — including soil processes, hydrological regimes, microbial communities, plant communities, and animal populations. Each of these components interacts with the others, and successful restoration requires addressing the bottlenecks that prevent natural recovery. Biotechnology can address several of these bottlenecks, particularly those related to soil biology and plant establishment.

Hrisana Journal publishes restoration research across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. We welcome submissions that report field-tested approaches, that integrate ecological and biotechnological perspectives, and that contribute to the global evidence base for effective ecosystem restoration.

Mine sites present extreme restoration challenges: toxic metals, extreme pH, lack of soil structure, absence of organic matter, and minimal biological activity. Conventional approaches — capping with clean soil, liming to neutralize acidity, fertilization to support plant establishment — can establish vegetation but often fail to rebuild functional soil ecosystems. Biotechnological approaches can accelerate soil development and improve restoration outcomes.

Microbial inoculation with metal-tolerant, plant-growth-promoting bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi can restart soil biological processes. Bacteria that produce indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), siderophores, and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase promote plant growth under stress. Mycorrhizal fungi extend plant root systems, improve nutrient and water uptake, and can immobilize metals in their mycelium. Combined inoculation can significantly accelerate plant establishment and soil development.

Biochar — pyrolyzed biomass — is a valuable amendment for mine site restoration. It improves soil physical properties (water retention, aeration), chemical properties (pH buffering, cation exchange capacity, metal sorption), and biological properties (habitat for microbial colonization). Biochar can be inoculated with beneficial microbes before application, providing both a carrier and an amendment. Field trials demonstrating the effectiveness of biochar-microbe combinations at mine sites are valuable contributions to the literature.

Wetlands provide critical ecosystem services — water filtration, flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, biodiversity habitat — but have been drained and degraded worldwide. Restoration of wetland function depends on restoring hydrology, vegetation, and the microbial communities that drive biogeochemical cycling. Biotechnology contributes primarily through the last of these: managing microbial communities to support desired functions.

Constructed treatment wetlands, discussed elsewhere in this hub, represent one application of wetland biotechnology. Restoration of natural wetlands similarly depends on microbial community establishment. Microbial inoculation can accelerate the development of denitrifying communities in restored riparian wetlands, supporting their nitrogen removal function. Methanogenic and methanotrophic community management influences the net greenhouse gas balance of restored wetlands, an important consideration for climate change mitigation.

Salt marsh restoration, particularly in coastal areas affected by subsidence and sea level rise, can benefit from microbiome-aware planting. Selecting plant genotypes with robust root microbiomes, inoculating plants with beneficial microbes, and managing soil conditions to favour desired microbial communities can improve establishment success and long-term resilience. Blue carbon — carbon sequestered in coastal wetland soils — is an emerging co-benefit of restoration, and microbial processes are central to its accumulation and stability.

Forest restoration is a global priority, with commitments under the Bonn Challenge to bring hundreds of millions of hectares of degraded and deforested land into restoration by 2030. Successful reforestation depends on more than just planting trees — it depends on establishing the soil microbial communities that support tree growth, nutrient cycling, and disease suppression. Biotechnology offers tools to accelerate this process.

Mycorrhizal inoculation is perhaps the most impactful intervention. Most tree species form symbiotic associations with mycorrhizal fungi — ectomycorrhizal for many temperate and boreal trees, arbuscular mycorrhizal for many tropical trees. Inoculation with appropriate mycorrhizal fungi at the nursery stage improves seedling survival and growth after outplanting, particularly on degraded sites with depleted fungal communities. Commercial inoculants are available for some species, but for many forest trees, site-specific inoculum or nurse-plant approaches are more effective.

Bacterial inoculants can also support forest restoration. Plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria that fix nitrogen (for actinorhizal trees such as Alnus), solubilize phosphorus, or produce phytohormones can improve seedling performance. Combined bacterial-fungal inoculants are being explored for synergistic effects. Long-term monitoring of inoculated reforestation sites provides evidence on the persistence and effectiveness of introduced microbes and on the recovery of ecosystem function.

Marine ecosystems — coral reefs, seagrass beds, kelp forests, oyster reefs — are among the most threatened on Earth. Restoration of these ecosystems presents unique challenges: the marine environment is dynamic, restoration interventions are difficult and expensive to deploy, and stressors such as warming and ocean acidification are ongoing. Biotechnology offers specialized tools for marine restoration.

Coral restoration has received particular attention as reefs decline globally. Microbiome manipulation — inoculating coral larvae or recruits with heat-tolerant symbiotic algae (Symbiodiniaceae) — can enhance thermal tolerance. Selective breeding of corals for heat tolerance, combined with microbiome optimization, may support reef persistence under climate change. Assisted evolution approaches, including directed evolution of symbionts and selection of stress-tolerant coral genotypes, are being explored at research scales.

For oyster reef restoration, microbiome-aware approaches are being explored to improve larval settlement and disease resistance. For seagrass restoration, microbial inoculation to support plant nutrient uptake and stress tolerance is being investigated. These applications are at early stages but represent a promising frontier where biotechnology can support marine ecosystem recovery. Hrisana Journal welcomes submissions across all marine restoration biotechnology applications.