Tropical forests store large amounts of carbon and high biodiversity, but are being degraded at alarming rates. The emerging global Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) agenda seeks to limit global climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the growth of trees. In doing so, it may also protect biodiversity as a free cobenefit, which is vital given the massive shortfall in funding for biodiversity conservation. We investigated whether natural forest regeneration on abandoned pastureland offers such cobenefits, focusing for the first time on the recovery of taxonomic diversity (TD), phylogenetic diversity (PD) and functional diversity (FD) of trees, including the recovery of threatened and endemic species richness, within isolated secondary forest (SF) fragments. We focused on the globally threatened Brazilian Atlantic Forest, where commitments have been made to restore 1 million hectares under FLR. Three decades after land abandonment, regenerating forests had recovered ~20% (72 Mg/ha) of the above‐ground carbon stocks of a primary forest (PF), with cattle pasture containing just 3% of stocks relative to PFs. Over this period, SF recovered ~76% of TD, 84% of PD and 96% of FD found within PFs. In addition, SFs had on average recovered 65% of threatened and ~30% of endemic species richness of primary Atlantic forest. Finally, we find positive relationships between carbon stock and tree diversity recovery. Our results emphasize that SF fragments offer cobenefits under FLR and other carbon‐based payments for ecosystem service schemes (e.g. carbon enhancements under REDD+). They also indicate that even isolated patches of SF could help to mitigate climate change and the biodiversity extinction crisis by recovering species of high conservation concern and improving landscape connectivity.

No abstract

Summary1. Fragmentation of tropical forests is a major driver of the global extinction crisis. A key question is understanding how fragmentation impacts phylogenetic diversity, which summarizes the total evolutionary history shared across species within a community. Conserving phylogenetic diversity decreases the potential of losing unique ecological and phenotypic traits and plays important roles in maintaining ecosystem function and stability. 2. Our study was conducted in landscapes within the highly fragmented Brazilian Atlantic forest. We sampled living trees with d.b.h. ≥ 4.8 cm in 0.1 ha plots within 28 fragment interiors and 12 fragment edges to evaluate the impacts of landscape configuration, composition and patch size, as well as edge effects, on phylogenetic diversity indices (PD, a measure of phylogenetic richness; MPD, phylogenetic distance between individuals in a community in deep evolutionary time; and MNTD, phylogenetic distance between each individual and its nearest phylogenetic neighbour). 3. We found that PD and MPD were correlated with species richness, while MNTD was not. Best models suggest that MPD was positively related to edge density and negatively related to the number of forest patches, but that there was no effect of landscape configuration and composition metrics on PD or MNTD, or on standardized values of phylogenetic structure (sesPD, sesMPD and sesMNTD), which control for species richness. Considering all selected models for phylogenetic diversity and structure, edge density and number of forest patches were most frequently selected. 4. With increasing patch size, we found lower PD in interiors but no change at edges and lower sesMNTD regardless of habitat type. Additionally, PD and sesMNTD were higher in interiors than at edges. 5. Synthesis. Changes in MPD and sesMNTD suggest that extirpation of species at edges or in highly fragmented landscapes increases the dominance of species within a subset of clades (phylogenetic clustering), likely those adapted to disturbance. Smaller patch sizes are phylogenetically diverse and overdispersed, probably due to an invasion of edge-adapted species. Conservation must enhance patch area and connectivity via forest restoration; pivotally, even small forest patches are important reservoirs of phylogenetic diversity in the highly threatened Brazilian Atlantic forest.

No abstract

Environmental legislation in many countries demands the rehabilitation of degraded areas to minimize environmental impacts. Brazilian laws require the restitution of self-sustaining ecosystems to historical conditions but ignore the emergence of novel ecosystems due to large-scale changes, such as species invasions, extinctions, and land-use or climate changes, although these novel ecosystems might fulfill ecosystem services in similar ways as historic ecosystems. Thorough discussions of rehabilitation goals, target ecosystems, applied methods, and approaches to achieving mine land rehabilitation, as well as dialogues about the advantages and risks of chemical inputs or non-native, non-invasive species that include all political, economic, social, and academic stakeholders are necessary to achieve biological feasibility, sociocultural acceptance, economic viability, and institutional tractability during environmental rehabilitation. Scientific knowledge of natural and rehabilitating ecosystems is indispensable for advancing these discussions and achieving more sustainable mining. Both mining companies and public institutions are responsible for obtaining this knowledge.

No abstract

Background: Thousands of bulk arthropod samples are collected globally every year for monitoring programs, conservation efforts, and ecosystem assessments. The taxonomic contents of these samples can be assessed either morphologically or molecularly using DNA metabarcoding coupled with high-throughput sequencing, the latter of which has gained popularity in recent years. In a related field, only vertebrateingesting invertebrates, such as carrion flies and blood-feeding leeches, are targeted for collection, and metabarcoding is carried out on the vertebrate DNA in their gut contents to provide information on vertebrate diversity (invertebrate-derived DNA, iDNA). Aims:Here, we show that the two approaches can be combined, that is, that vertebrate DNA can be detected through metabarcoding of bulk arthropod samples.Materials and Methods: Two metabarcoding primer sets were used to PCR amplify mammal and vertebrate DNA in DNA extracted from bulk arthropod samples collected with pitfall and Malaise traps in tropical forests in Brazil and Tanzania. Results:In total, 32 vertebrate taxa were detected representing mammals, amphibians, and birds. Detected taxa were within, or close to, their known geographical distributions. Conclusion:This study demonstrates that with a relatively small additional investment, information on vertebrate diversity can be obtained from bulk arthropod samples. This is of particular interest in projects where bulk arthropod samples are collected and extracted with the aim to use metabarcoding to assess arthropod taxa.In such studies, the additional information on vertebrates can further inform ecological assessments and monitoring programs and function as a supplement to traditional survey methods of vertebrates.

Despite the importance of climate‐adjusted provenancing to mitigate the effects of environmental change, climatic considerations alone are insufficient when restoring highly degraded sites. Here we propose a comprehensive landscape genomic approach to assist the restoration of moderately disturbed and highly degraded sites. To illustrate it we employ genomic data sets comprising thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms from two plant species suitable for the restoration of iron‐rich Amazonian Savannas. We first use a subset of neutral loci to assess genetic structure and determine the genetic neighbourhood size. We then identify genotype‐phenotype‐environment associations, map adaptive genetic variation, and predict adaptive genotypes for restoration sites. Whereas local provenances were found optimal to restore a moderately disturbed site, a mixture of genotypes seemed the most promising strategy to recover a highly degraded mining site. We discuss how our results can help define site‐adjusted provenancing strategies, and argue that our methods can be more broadly applied to assist other restoration initiatives.