Artículo publicado en Open Access bajo los términos de Creative Commons attribution Non Comercial License 3.0.

The declaration of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2020-2030 has established the need to focus on human rights in restoration initiatives, including gender equality. Although this goal raises a need to monitor gender biases on ecosystem restoration, we still lack basic gender information and evaluations on the current situation. The main purpose of this study is to analyze gender bias in ecosystem restoration covering three dimensions: research, outreach, and practice. We used scientific publications from the Restoration Ecology journal, mentions of these articles in Altmetric Explorer and Twitter, and projects from the Society for Ecological Restoration's database. First, we study gender bias among people leading ecosystem restoration initiatives in the three dimensions. Second, we assessed factors that could influence gender bias, including year, target ecosystem and socioeconomic country development. Third, we analyzed whether the impact of scientific knowledge in society depends on the gender of the scientific team. Our results indicate that men were primary leaders in research, outreach, and practice initiatives in ecosystem restoration. There seems to be a trend over time towards equality in research, but gender inequality is still present in most types of ecosystems, with women leading more projects in more developed countries. The impact of scientific knowledge is independent of the author's gender, but research of male senior authors seems to reach society more easily. This broad perspective of inequality in the three dimensions can evolve towards gender equality, by applying gender approaches in restoration policies and initiatives. KEY WORDSgender bias; equality; gender gap; leadership; leaky pipeline; women in science IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE • Gender inequality persists within research, outreach and practice in ecosystem restoration, mainly in senior positions. These results can serve as a baseline for the design of equal restoration initiatives triggered by the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. • Active efforts are needed to develop initiatives and policies in ecosystem restoration to achieve equal opportunities in reaching senior research positions, equal transfer of scientific knowledge and equal participation and benefit sharing in projects, putting global efforts in countries with lower resources.• Reaching gender equality within these restoration dimensions requires incorporating gender aspects in research teams and practices, including women in decision-making and evaluation processes, assuring gender balance hiring, equal pay and funding opportunities, and recognizing women's achievements.

The possible consequences of top predators for the success of restoration actions for animals is still poorly understood. Our main objective was to analyze whether there could be a risk of creating habitats with an excess of predation by top predators when carrying out actions to improve cliff habitats for cliff-nesting birds at mining sites. We surveyed 28 mining sites in Spain to obtain information regarding the Eagle Owl's (Bubo bubo) presence and diet, and analyzed its relationship with the density of cliff-nesting birds and rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus, its main prey) at the mining sites. We detected Eagle Owls in 18 mining sites (64%) and collected enough prey remains in 11 mining sites. A total of 732 minimum number of prey were identified. The diet of the Eagle Owl consisted mainly of mammals (83%) and the proportion of birds in the diet was low (13%). There was no relationship between the presence of Eagle Owls and the density of rabbits in the mining sites, but there was a positive relationship with the density of cliff-nesting birds. We conclude that the Eagle Owl does not seem to exert significant pressure on the cliff-nesting birds, even on wild pigeons, the most abundant cliff-nesting birds in its diet. Restoration projects which promote cliff-nesting birds would not entail a significant risk of generating ecological traps by excess of predation by the Eagle Owl. Furthermore, this species could be favored in restoration plans, as it is a threatened species in some areas in Europe.

BACKGROUND: Birds have been shown to reduce pest effects on various ecosystem types. This study aimed to synthesize the effect of birds on pest abundance, product damage and yield in agricultural and forest systems in different environments. Our hypothesis is that birds are effective pest regulators that contribute to a reduction in pest abundance, enhancement of yield quality and quantity and economic profit, and that pest regulation may depend on moderators such as the type of ecosystem, climate, pest, and indicator (ecological or economic).RESULTS: We performed a systematic literature review of experimental and observational studies related to biological control in the presence and absence of regulatory birds. We retained 449 observations from 104 primary studies that were evaluated through qualitative and quantitative analyses. Of the 79 studies with known effects of birds on pest regulation, nearly half of the 334 observations showed positive effects (49%), 46% showed neutral effects, and very few (5%) showed negative effects. Overall effect sizes were positive (mean Hedges' d = 0.38 ± 0.06). A multiple model selection retained only ecosystem and indicator types as significant moderators.CONCLUSION: Our results support our hypothesis that there is a positive effect of avian control of pests for each analyzed moderator and this effect was significant for both ecological and economic indicators. Avian regulation of pests is a potential effective approach for environmentally friendly pest management that can reduce pesticide use regardless of the context of implementation.