Neotropical grasslands have undergone intensive degradation by land conversion or biological invasion, but their restoration is still challenging. Here, we integrated two approaches to (1) assess the resilience of pristine dry and wet cerrado grasslands after removal of plants and topsoil and (2) evaluate the effectiveness of different treatments based on the material extracted from pristine grasslands to restore degraded dry and wet grasslands after pine invasion. We used old-growth cerrado grasslands in southeastern Brazil as donor ecosystems and assessed their resilience after the removal of all plants and the upper 5-cm soil layer. To restore both wet and dry grasslands, we tested topsoil translocation, plant transplantation, direct seeding, topsoil translocation + direct seeding, and needle layer removal. Both wet and dry grasslands were resilient to plants and topsoil removal, as evidenced by their fast recovery. The major mechanisms promoting resilience were seed germination in the wet grasslands and resprouting from underground organs in the dry grasslands. Transplantation was the most successful treatment to restore vegetation cover, species richness, and composition in both wet and dry grasslands, especially for herbaceous species. Restoration of the herbaceous layer of cerrado grasslands can be successful using natural ecosystems as donor sites without impairing their resilience in the studied scale. Improving the resilience of degraded dry and wet cerrado grasslands depends on reestablishing the condition to seed germination in the wet grasslands and reintroducing species with the ability to resprout after disturbance in the dry grasslands, attributes that explained the quick recovery of the donor ecosystems. Implications for Practice• Donor ecosystems can quickly recover from uprooting plants and removing topsoil at a small scale in both dry and wet grasslands. • As topsoil translocation and transplantation of mature grasses and forbs proved to be viable techniques to restore dry and wet cerrado grasslands, once restored these grasslands can be turned into sources of material for grassland restoration elsewhere. • Transplantation during the rainy season is a promising way to quickly recover the ground layer of degraded dry and wet grasslands with low potential for natural regeneration in the Cerrado. • Reestablishing the ground cover, plant species richness, and species composition is much faster and easier in wet than in dry degraded grasslands. • Removal of the pine needle layer is mandatory before the application of restoration techniques in either dry or wet grasslands.

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Invasion by exotic grasses is a severe threat to neotropical grasslands conservation and a major challenge for their restoration. To restore fire‐prone cerrado grasslands in southeastern Brazil, which have been massively invaded by the African grass Urochloa decumbens, we tested prescribed fire, herbicides, and hoeing, by themselves or in different combinations. Techniques were compared using ecological indicators (decreasing invasive and increasing native vegetation cover and richness) and cost‐effectiveness. All treatments, except fire alone, were similarly effective in controlling the invasive grass, which was reduced to less than 5% cover after 2 years. However, only hoeing was effective in recovering both ground cover and richness of the native vegetation, which was the restoration goal. Despite not changing ground cover by native vegetation or alien grasses, fire was successful as a complementary technique, by depleting the seed bank of the invasive grass by 40%. Hoeing preceded by fire and followed by a grass‐selective herbicide was the most cost‐effective, requiring US$40 per hectare to increase native ground cover by one percentage point compared to US$93 per hectare if only hoeing. Despite the low cost and efficacy of glyphosate application for controlling the invasive grass, it must be followed by reintroducing the native ground cover through active restoration. If the restoration target is to recover both structure and richness of the native vegetation without planting, hoeing is the best solution to control alien grasses.

A utilização de ecossistemas naturais como meta a ser atingida e a seleção de indicadores para monitoramento dos projetos são temas controversos na ciência e na prática da restauração. Analisamos a vegetação ripária em quatro remanescentes de Floresta Estacional Semidecidual, para verificar se alguns atributos dessas comunidades se repetem em diferentes locais, podendo ser referência para esta região fitogeográfica. Instalamos dez parcelas de 100 m² em cada local, amostramos plantas lenhosas com altura ≥ 0,5 m, divididas em estrato regenerante (DAP < 5 cm) e estrato arbóreo (DAP ≥ 5 cm) e classificamos as espécies com base em atributos funcionais, raridade e status de ameaça. Contabilizamos lianas, pteridófitas e árvores com epífitas. As variáveis estruturais de densidade (estrato arbóreo e regenerante e árvores com epífitas), área basal e cobertura de copas não diferiram entre locais. Foram pouco variáveis entre as áreas a riqueza rarefeita para 100 indivíduos no estrato arbóreo, a riqueza total estimada por Jackknife e as proporções de espécies raras, tolerantes à sombra, de crescimento lento e zoocóricas. Porém, analisando-se a proporção de indivíduos na comunidade, somente a tolerância à sombra foi pouco variável. Para as outras variáveis analisadas não existem padrões que possam ser considerados referência para esta região fitogeográfica. No entanto, ainda que para algumas variáveis existam padrões, sua utilização como meta da restauração depende de: 1) prazos longos para monitoramento de projetos e, sobretudo, 2) estudos que demonstrem que os ecossistemas restaurados podem, um dia, igualar aos ecossistemas pré-existentes.