In: Biology
Explain why demographic bottlenecks and invasive species are problematic for ecological restoration.
Demographic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental factors like floods, earthquakes etc. Invasive species are the species which are not native to a particular environment; they come from some other place and tend to harm the ecosystem, environment and human health.
During bottleneck a large portion of the population is lost. During this process, many alleles are also lost; sometimes the entire germplasm is lost which cannot be brought back even by ecological restoration. So, demographic bottlenecks are a problem for ecological restoration.
When ecological restoration is a concern, then invasive species pose the greatest problem. Invasive species keep providing harm to the ecologically restored species brought into the population via micro and macro-propagation. The newly introduced juvenile population will never be able to survive in presence of invasive species. It is further important to note that once introduced, it is never possible to completely remove the invasive species from an ecosystem. So, ecological restoration is hampered.