Human activities degrade totally or partially ecosystems, making them less diverse, less functional and more vulnerable to further change. For years, we have been quantifying the effects of disturbance on ecosystem diversity and function, but less has been known about the effects of disturbance on their recovery. One may think that thanks to the restoration of degraded ecosystems, we can bring back lost biodiversity and functions, and even justify further degradation

One of the most relevant questions in conservation biology is to estimate the magnitude of anthropogenic disturbance, that is, what would it take for an ecosystem to fully recover? A common problem to respond to this question is to choose what to measure to quantify disturbance or recovery. Unfortunately, with present knowledge and technology it is not possible to measure a whole ecosystem.