Over the past two decades, the headwaters of the Xingu Basin in the Amazon have been subjected to one of the highest deforestation rates in Brazil, with negative effects on both terrestrial and aquatic systems. The environmental consequences of forest land conversion have concerned the indigenous people living downstream, and this was the first motivation for the Y Ikatu Xingu campaign—‘save the good water of the Xingu’. Among the objectives of the initiative was to restore riparian forests on private land across the basin. For a region where the rivers, rainstorms, forest remnants, distances and farms are huge, the challenges were equally large: crossing the biotic and abiotic thresholds of degradation, as well as addressing the lack of technology, know-how, seeds, forest nurseries, trained personnel and roads, and the lack of motivation for restoration. After 6 years, despite the remarkable advances in terms of technical innovation coupled with a broad and effective social involvement, the restored areas represent only a small portion of those aimed for. The still high costs of restoration, the uncertainties of legislation and also the global economy have been strong forces constraining the expansion of restored forests. Additional efforts and strategies are necessary to overcome these barriers.

The practice of using green manure for ecological restoration has grown so significantly that there is a shortage of seeds for purchase on the market. Nonetheless, there is very little literature available demonstrating the effects and benefits commonly cited for green manure for addressing important environmental filters, such as herbivory and invasive grasses. Our objective is to determine which spatial sowing arrangement including green manure promotes the lowest rates of herbivory on native species and decreases cover by invasive grasses in ecological restoration. We experimentally tested three sowing configurations of green manure intercropping with native species: T1 the lowest herbivoy rate for both native and green manure, mixture of native and green manure species in the same row, T2, alternating rows of green manure and native species, and T3, rows of native species intercropped with a 2 m wide strip of green manure. We found that (1) green manure species experience greater damage from herbivory than do native species, with average values ranging from 1.8 times higher values in green manure than natives in T1, 2.9 times in T2, and 2.7 times in T3 (when sown in rows and in broader strips, green manure and native species attract more herbivorous insects than if they were sown together [muvuca]); and (2) when green manure and native species are planted mixed in the same row they produce greater soil cover, and thus limit invasion by undesired species. The use of green manure has been identified as an alternative method for overcoming the environmental filters of herbivory and invasive grasses in restoration areas. Considering the demand for information that supports the use of green manure for purposes of ecological restoration, the novel results of the present study fill a void and should prove to be of great interest to researchers and practitioners. In addition, the presented results provide information on efficient and low-cost restoration techniques that are necessary for the activity to gain scale, enabling countries to meet the large restoration targets.

Whether management intervention is required to control biological invasions depends primarily on demonstrating species losses resulting from such invasions. Brackens of the Pteridium genus are currently regarded as a problem species that act as important ecological filters in the assembly of invaded communities. We investigated the effects of Pteridium arachnoideum invasion on the diversity, structure, floristic composition, and functional traits of cerradão in Assis, São Paulo, Brazil. We compared an invaded site with an adjacent non-invaded site. Bracken constrained the establishment of tree species, resulting in a community structure remarkably distinct from the non-invaded area. The density and basal area of the arboreal community were higher in non-invaded areas, but large trees were more frequent in the invaded areas. However, bracken did not reduce tree species diversity. Both richness and diversity were higher in the invaded area, indicating that over time, tree species richness and diversity naturally recovered, albeit slowly, in the invaded area. Therefore, one cannot attribute the loss of richness in the Cerrado vegetation to bracken invasion. Hence, we argue that, in this system, eradication of this invasive species is not likely to be cost effective, and thus, it should be a low management priority.

As a group adapted to invade disturbed sites, bamboos can dominate extensive areas and, thus, alter vegetation structure and dynamics. However, the effect of bamboo expansion associated to human activity on seedling communities in tropical forests remains poorly known. We investigated the correlation of the native bamboo Guadua tagoara presence for a year on the abundance, richness, diversity, dominance, evenness, emergence, mortality, and growth of the first months of the native seedlings establishment in an Atlantic forest area, São Paulo State, Brazil. Bamboo presence favored the initial establishment of the palm Euterpe edulis seedlings but altered seedling community structure as a whole. Species richness did not differ between bamboo and nonbamboo dominated habitats, but abundance, diversity, and evenness did. Bamboo habitats showed higher seedling abundance, emergence, and mortality than in habitats without bamboos. However, diversity was lower in these habitats. Our results shed light on the role of bamboo presence in limiting early establishment of native seedlings but favoring the first months of establishment of E. edulis, the dominant species in bamboo habitats (70%). Therefore, the monitoring of more specific variables could be included (i.e., bamboo culm density, soil type, decomposition of organic matter, fauna living, or foraging in bamboos) in future studies to better understand the consequences of bamboo dominance on the recruitment and dynamics of tropical forests biodiversity in the long term.

Impacto da invasão e mecanismos de regeneração natural do cerradão em áreas ocupadas por Pteridium arachnoideum (Kaulf.) Maxon (Dennstaedtiaceae) no sudoeste do Estado de São Paulo São Carlos-SP 2010 NATALIA GUERIN Impacto da invasão e mecanismos de regeneração natural do cerradão em áreas ocupadas por Pteridium arachnoideum (Kaulf.) Maxon (Dennstaedtiaceae) no sudoeste do Estado de São Paulo Dissertação apresentada à Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos, da Universidade de São Paulo, como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do título de Mestre em Ciências da Engenharia Ambiental.