Seed predation and reduced predation risk with distance from conspecific trees are important influences on tree regeneration in tropical forests. Shifts in animal communities, such as an increase in rodents and other small mammals due to forest fragmentation, could alter patterns of seed predation and affect tree regeneration and community dynamics in forest fragments. We performed a field experiment on four native rainforest tree species in the Western Ghats, India, to test whether fragmentation increases seed predation by mammals and alters the distance dependence of seed predation. We monitored seed predation within open and mammal exclosure plots, near and far from the canopies of conspecific trees, in contiguous and fragmented forests. Seed predation of Cullenia exarillata, Ormosia travancorica, and Syzygium rubicundum was markedly higher in forest fragments, and more so within open plots than exclosures, while the predominantly insect‐predated Acronychia pedunculata experienced similar predation in contiguous forests and fragments. Seed predation of C. exarillata and S. rubicundum was unrelated to distance from conspecific trees in open plots in both contiguous forests and fragments, in contrast to exclosures that showed marked near versus far differences in seed predation. Our findings suggest that by increasing overall seed predation risk and imposing similar seed predation risk near and far from adults variably across the tree species, small mammals could alter processes that shape tree diversity and species composition in fragmented tropical rainforests.

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Experts recommend moving beyond the passive-versus-active dichotomy toward an intervention continuum framework of ecological restoration. Restoration science should guide this transition by elucidating the performance of restoration strategies and underlying mechanisms along gradients of intervention intensity, but is constrained by a paucity of relevant comparisons, conflation of restoration goals, and incomplete documentation of interventions in the present literature. Moving beyond the passive-active dichotomy in restoration science requires emphasis on (1) designing studies that compare multiple restoration treatments to identify whether and how benefits accrue with increasing intervention intensity; (2) distinguishing ecological from other ecosystem restoration goals, as goals could modify outcomes at any given intervention intensity level; and (3) documenting restoration goals, methods, and costs consistently and in sufficient detail in publications, for reproducibility in science and practice, and relevance to comparative and synthetic research, in restoration frameworks based on the intervention continuum.