Monitoring and evaluating forest restoration projects is a challenge especially in largescale, but the remote monitoring of indicators with the use of synoptic, multispectral and multitemporal data allows us to gauge the restoration success with more accurately

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Invasive species are among the main threats to grassland biodiversity, and nature conservation management seeks the best methods to eliminate them and to restore natural habitats. We studied the long‐term effect of mowing on the restoration of Pannonian sand grassland after elimination of invasive black locust (Robinia pseudo‐acacia) plantation in Hungary, Europe. Stands of R. pseudo‐acacia at three sites were felled and stumps herbicide‐treated in the winter of 1994–1995. Mowing with hay removal treatment was applied twice a year in 1995–2001 to assist grassland recovery. A block of 12 adjacent plots of 10 m by 10 m was assigned for the experiment at each site, with six control (unmowed) and six treatment (mowed) plots randomly selected. Vegetation was sampled in June and August yearly in 1995–1999 in all sites, plus in seminatural reference grasslands then re‐sampled six times until 2017 in two sites. Herbicide application with repeated mowing successfully eliminated R. pseudo‐acacia. In the unmowed plots, dense woody cover developed at all sites. Vegetation of mowed plots approached the reference grasslands in sites with better propagule availability of target species according to trajectory analyses. In these sites, higher cover of target species was found in mowed compared to unmowed plots, though still significantly lower than in the reference. Mowed plots were more prone to secondary invasion than the unmowed. The long‐term monitoring revealed that initial mowing assisted the restoration of Pannonian sand grassland, but further management is needed to control secondary invasion and increase target species cover.

Evaluating and monitoring forest areas during a restoration process is indispensable to estimate the success or failure of management intervention and to correct the restoration trajectory through adaptive management. However, the field measurement of several indicators in large areas can be expensive and laborious, and establishing reference values for indicators is difficult. The use of supervised classification techniques of high resolution images, combined with an expert system to generate management recommendations, can be considered promising tools for monitoring and evaluating restoration areas. The objective of the present study was to elaborate an expert system of management recommendation generation for areas under restoration, which were monitored by two different remote sensors: UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). The study was carried out in areas under restoration with about 54 ha and five years of implementation, owned by Fibria Celulose S.A. (recently acquired by Suzano S.A.), in the southern region of Bahia State, Brazil. We used images from Canon S110 NIR (green, red, near infrared) on UAV and LiDAR data compositions (intensity image, digital surface model, digital terrain model, normalized digital surface model). The monitored restoration indicator entailed land cover separated into three classes: Canopy cover, bare soil and grass cover. The images were classified using the Random Forest (RF) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) algorithms and the area occupied by each land cover classes was calculated. An expert system was developed in ArcGIS to define management recommendations according to the land cover classes, and then we compared the recommendations generated by both algorithms and images. There was a slight difference between the recommendations generated by the different combinations of images and classifiers. The most frequent management recommendation was “weed control + plant seedlings” (34%) for all evaluated methods. The image monitoring methods suggested by this study proved to be efficient, mainly by reducing the time and cost necessary for field monitoring and increasing the accuracy of the generated management recommendations.

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Aim: There is increasing recognition that plant-soil feedbacks drive species coexistence; therefore the below-ground compartment should be better considered in ecological restoration. Addition of carbon is a restoration measure that relies on indirect plant-soil relationships by immobilizing soil nitrogen in microbial biomass to manipulate competitive hierarchies between plant species. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the impact of six years of carbon amendment in old-field restoration in the long term, 20 years after the first application. Location: Old-fields and reference sand steppe on dry calcareous sandy soil in Fülöpháza, Kiskun LTER site (46°53′ N, 19°24′ E), Hungary, Pannonian biogeographic region, Europe. Methods: We applied carbon amendment in the form of sucrose and sawdust on three abandoned agricultural fields between 1998 and 2003. Vegetation was surveyed in 1998-2006 and re-sampled in 2008, 2010 and 2018 on permanent 2 m × 2 m coenological relevés for carbon-amended, control and reference plots (n = 144). We used principal response curves (PRC) to describe vegetation development trajectories and linear mixed-effects models to test changes in cover of vascular plants and cryptogams, nitrogen requirement groups and restoration species groups with time and treatment. Results: Carbon amendment resulted in lower soil nitrogen availability, and lower cover of vascular plants and cryptogams compared to control, but these differences became visible only four to five years after the first application and disappeared three years after the cessation of treatment. Minor treatment effects on the cover of oligotrophic, mesotrophic and target species were found. Conclusions: Carbon amendment did not speed up the recovery of sand grasslands; however, the reduction of cover (vegetation and cryptogam) can be a window of opportunity for other species to colonize that can be used as a complement to other treatments. Long-term monitoring is especially important in evaluating restoration interventions that focus on indirect above-ground-below-ground linkages.

The aim of this study is to characterize the perceptions and interests of farmers related to the adoption of agroforestry systems (AFS) for restoration of Fibria Celulose S.A.'s Legal Reserves (LRs), with the production of food and nontimber forest products. Twenty farmers were interviewed in the community of São Geraldo (São Mateus, Espírito Santo, Brazil), who participated in the social projects led by the company in the community. With this, it was possible to trace the profile of farmers and farms, their knowledge of environmental suitability, and interest in the adoption of AFS. Most farmers did not have information about AFS and the possibility of its use in LR. After being educated on the opportunities established in the Brazilian Forestry Law, 12 of the interviewed farmers expressed interest in adopting AFS to restore LR, considering the potential benefits to the diversification of income, water, soil, and biodiversity conservation. Finally, it was also possible to identify species of interest by farmers for AFS composition in LRs.* Values in parentheses refer to the percentage of farmers who mentioned the species in the interview; ** Others: tree sorrel (Averrhoa bilimbi L.), starfruit (Averrhoa carambola L.), sabiá (Mimosa caesalpiniaefolia Benth), sugar-apple (Annona squamosa L.) e cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.). Floresta e Ambiente 2020; 27(1): e20170313 8 -8 Reis BP, Oliveira Neto SN, Sarcinelli TS, Martins SV

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