[RESUMEN] ABSTRACT

Since the mid 1980's, the ability to repair damaged ecosystems has been considered in many ways to be the evidence of our knowledge of biological mechanisms, and therefore restoration ecology has been hailed as the "acid test" of ecological theory. This assertion is made on the assumption that in order to reassemble a damaged ecological system, an in-depth knowledge is needed of the inner workings of that system. As research in restored systems continues, the impoverishment of our knowledge becomes more evident. Areas of study exist in the restoration of damaged systems which could benefit not only the practice of environmental restoration, but also the body of theories associated with ecology and evolutionary biology. These areas of research concern genetics, the forces of selection and adaptation, coevolution, extinction, and recolonization. Restoration ecology provides a research framework which allows hypotheses in evolution to be tested, as well as a means by which evolutionary biologists can make their work more applicable and accessible to a wider scientific field.