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Resilient secondary tropical forests? Although deforestation is rampant across the tropics, forest has a strong capacity to regrow on abandoned lands. These “secondary” forests may increasingly play important roles in biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and landscape restoration. Poorter et al . analyzed the patterns of recovery in forest attributes (related to soil, plant functioning, structure, and diversity) in 77 secondary forest sites in the Americas and West Africa. They found that different attributes recovered at different rates, with soil recovering in less than a decade and species diversity and biomass recovering in little more than a century. The authors discuss how these findings can be applied in efforts to promote forest restoration. —AMS

-(Woody species richness in the Brazilian atlantic forest, state of São Paulo (Brazil)). The atlantic forest in São Paulo state, has been described in the scientific literature as having high floristic diversity. Such statement is based on data and conclusions of local floristic and phytosociological studies. However, the studies supporting this idea seldom give a clear definition of the plant group analysed, the scale of the study, nor, most significantly, the forests used for comparisons. Here we compare woody species richness data (≥ 2.5 cm dbh) from the atlantic forest in São Paulo to similar data from other neotropical forests. Thereafter, we discuss the major relationships between historical and ecological processes and woody species richness in neotropical forests. Neither data on woody species richness nor characteristics of latitude, altitude, rainfall and soil in the atlantic region is able to support the idea of high woody species richness in the São Paulo atlantic forest. Studies using comparable data sets are required in order to characterise woody species richness in all types of the atlantic forest, as well as to suggest the mechanisms responsible for plant richness in different scales.RESUMO -(A riqueza de espécies arbóreas na floresta atlântica de encosta no estado de São Paulo (Brasil)). Extensa literatura referese à floresta atlântica de encosta no estado de São Paulo como possuidora de elevada diversidade florística. Esta afirmação está baseada em dados e conclusões de estudos florísticos e fitossociológicos locais. A maioria destes trabalhos não define com clareza o que considera diversidade, de que grupos estão tratando, a escala de abordagem e, principalmente, quais as florestas usadas para comparação. Neste estudo, são comparados dados sobre riqueza de plantas arbóreas (≥ 2,5 cm dap) na floresta atlântica de encosta em São Paulo com os de outras florestas neotropicais. Posteriormente, são discutidas as principais relações conhecidas entre a riqueza de plantas lenhosas nas florestas neotropicais e fatores históricos e ecológicos. Nem os dados sobre riqueza nem as características de latitude, altitude, precipitação e solo na região da encosta atlântica suportam a hipótese de riqueza elevada nesta floresta em São Paulo. Estudos realizados a partir de base de dados comparáveis são necessários para caracterizar a riqueza de espécies lenhosas em todos os tipos de floresta, bem como para sugerir hipóteses sobre os processos responsáveis pelos padrões observados em diferentes escalas.

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