Level-2 ecological integrity: Assessing ecosystems in a changing world

Ecological integrity is a term often used to describe the state of ecosystems subjected to anthropogenic pressures. It is usually defined closely to the literal definition of integrity: being whole or unimpaired. Considering the deep changes our world is undergoing, we argue here for ecological indicators that are not restricted to naturalness targets. We propose a conceptual framework for so-called level-2 indicators of ecological integrity, that evaluate how the integrity of ecosystems is preserved given their naturalness context. We develop reference relationships between indicator and contextual variables and then assess how an ecosystem is doing, compared to others in similar contexts, by its distance to this reference. We explore two such relationships: the amount of aboveground phytomass an ecosystem stores in a given volume (biomass packing efficiency) and the mean patch size given the total habitat amount in the landscape (habitat connectivity). Using datasets at the national and worldwide scale, we show that these indicators are objective measures of ecological integrity that allow the comparison of plant stands and landscapes across different environmental and naturalness contexts. This framework provides a basis to evaluate if the state of an ecosystem is degrading and paves the way to a triage system prioritizing conservation and restoration actions. (C) 2020 Associacao Brasileira de Ciencia Ecologica e Conservacao. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).