Forest restoration by direct seeding: a global bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Direct seeding has been suggested to be a highly cost‐efficient system for forest restoration but is still not applied on a large scale worldwide. Thus, to improve the knowledge surrounding the application of this system, I conducted a global bibliometric analysis about forest restoration by direct seeding. Based on a literature search of three online databases (Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar), I found 81 peer‐reviewed articles related to field experiments testing direct seeding for forest restoration. Each article was analyzed according to the following aspects: publication years, countries, continents, forest types, stages of restoration, journals, and authors. The results showed an increase in the number of articles published in recent years but a still low number of studies conducted to test the application of the system. These included field studies from a number of tropical and temperate countries worldwide, with a concentration of studies in Brazil and United States. Monitoring forests established by direct seeding is rare. A few researchers have paid special attention to the development of the field, and a few journals have published three or more articles on this topic. Overall, this study concludes that the application of direct seeding for forest restoration is a promising area for research, as the field is still little studied and has great potential to help achieve restoration goals. Furthermore, the results show trends and gaps that should be considered in future research to improve the application of direct seeding around the world.

Impacts of ecological restoration on the genetic diversity of plant species: A global meta‐analysis

“…Reynolds et al (2013) reported that seed‐based restoration of an eelgrass provided abundant propagules, rapidly increased coverage over 1600 ha in 10 years, and improved GD in recovered populations. However, direct seeding, a cost‐effective and time‐efficient restoration practice, has not yet been widely adopted throughout the world and should be advocated in the future with appropriate source populations (Leverkus et al, 2021; Souza, 2022).…”

How have RPAS helped monitor forests and what can we apply in forest restoration monitoring?

“…The United Nations classifies forests according to their climatic domain as tropical, boreal, temperate, and subtropical forests, covering approximately 45, 27, 16, and 11% of the total area, respectively (FAO 2020). Each type of forest has unique levels of biodiversity, vegetation structures, and ecological processes that need to be considered in the restoration process (de Souza 2022).…”

“…They also play a pivotal role in global carbon dynamics, accounting for a third of terrestrial gross primary production and half of the carbon stored in land (Hubbell et al 1999). However, they are also the most deforested forest landscapes (FAO 2020; de Souza 2022).…”

Bibliometric Analysis of Top Papers in Ecology Based on Essential Science Indicators during 2011–2021

“…The records were downloaded and saved as plain text format by selecting the export format “full records and cited references”, and then imported into VOSviewer (version 1.6.18, 2022, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands) for further citation analysis. The impact factors (IF 2021 and 5-year IF) for the identified journals were taken from the Journal Citation Report (JCR 2021) that was updated at the end of June 2022 (Clarivate, Journal Citation Reports ™ 2021, 2022).…”

“…Bibliometric technique has been adopted to analyse several subjects covering Web of Science category of Ecology. Of such topics, the following could be mentioned among others: research trends in bat echolocation studies between 1970 and 2021 (Cao et al 2022), alpine treelines as ecological indicators of global climate change (Chen et al 2022), applying network analysis to explore the global scientific literature on food security (Skaf et al 2020), bibliometric analysis of human–wildlife conflict (Su et al 2022), ecological compensation and its application in land resources (Zhang et al 2021), ecological network analysis 2010–2016 (Borrett et al 2018), ecosystem services in Southern Africa (Nyathi et al 2022), evolution of the field of ecological restoration over the last three decades (Guan et al 2019), forest restoration by direct seeding (de Souza 2022), global biodiversity research during 1900–2009 (Liu et al 2011), global trends in zooplankton research of freshwater ecosystems during 1991–2020 (Gao et al 2022), landscape of ecological research in Australia (Kumar and Khormi 2013), and many others.…”