Conservation, Restoration, and Ecological Design are the triad of natural resource management.
Conservation gives the greatest 'bang-for-the-buck' when protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services, but it is an increasingly limited option in a human dominated world. Restoration has become one of the most important forms of management in the modern era, in part, because a large fraction of existing habitats have already been degraded by human activities. Ecological design is a useful when we need to construct human-dominated habitats to make them less hostile to biodiversity, or to better balance ecosystem services that are needed by people. The Cardinale Lab's research in each form of natural resource management is described below.
Much of the Cardinale Lab's research focuses on developing a key argument for conservation, which is that biodiversity is the foundation for a healthy planet.
The Cardinale lab works on the restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services in freshwater habitats, including wetlands, lakes, streams, and rivers.
The Cardinale Lab uses principles of ecological design to improve the efficiency and sustainability of human engineered ecosystems.
