Das Projekt "A novel experimental approach with complex pollination network analysis to quantify the impact of habitat restoration on ecosystem integrity" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Aarhus University, National Environmental Research Institute durchgeführt. Plant-animal interactions, such as pollination, play a vital role in biodiversity maintenance. Interaction networks are essential for understanding ecological processes, consequences of species extinction and invasion, and effects of humans on ecosystem organisation and functioning. This research will use complex pollination networks in an experimental model system to investigate the impact of human-mediated disturbance on ecosystem functioning and native plant population viability. Species invasion and habitat degradation have devastated natural ecosystems worldwide, but especially so on islands. We will use restored, previously degraded, and non-invaded control sites of endemic plant communities in the Seychelles, a biodiversity hotspot, as a model system. Fully-quantitative pollination networks will be used to detect dynamic effects of habitat restoration on plant reproduction and pollinator diversity. Further, these will be compared to pre-restoration networks and null-model predictions based on the same communities to investigate the impact of disturbance on network structure, dynamics and secondary extinctions. The proposed research will contribute greatly to our understanding of human-induced changes in ecosystem functions and it will assist in alleviating anthropogenic impact on endangered species, and more importantly on their interactions, which ensure long-term viability and robustness of ecosystems.