Landscape-scale forest cover drives the predictability of forest regeneration across the Neotropics

Arroyo‐Rodríguez, Víctor; Rito, Kátia F.; Farfán, Michelle; Navía, Iván C; Mora, Francisco; Arreola-Villa, Felipe; Balvanera, Patricia; Bongers, Frans; Castellanos-Castro, Carolina; Catharino, Eduardo Luı́s Martins; Chazdon, Robin L.; Dupuy-Rada, Juan Manuel; Ferguson, Bruce G.; Foster, Paul; González-Valdivia, Noel; Griffith, Daniel M.; Hernández‐Stefanoni, José Luis; Jakovac, Catarina C.; Junqueira, André Braga; Jong, Bernardus Hendricus jozeph De; Letcher, Susan G.; May‐Pat, Filogonio; Meave, Jorge A.; Ochoa-Gaona, Susana; Meirelles, Gabriela S.; Muñiz-Castro, Miguel Ángel; Muñoz, Rodrigo; Powers, Jennifer S.; Rocha, Gustavo Paiva Evangelista da; Rosário, Ricardo P G; Santos, Bráulio A.; Simon, Marcelo F.; Tabarelli, Marcelo; Tun-Dzul, Fernando; Berg, Eduardo van den; Vieira, Daniel Luís Mascia; Williams‐Linera, Guadalupe; Martı́nez-Ramos, Miguel

doi:10.1098/rspb.2022.2203

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…This demonstrates a rapid shift of species compositions after abandonment and a slowing down of community changes in the later stages. Furthermore, the high variation in the early stages of recovery in our study systems might be affected by variation in forest cover in the surrounding as recently shown as relevant for predictability of forest regeneration 48 . Second, additional anthropogenic impacts as logging or hunting 20 , 49 can strongly affect the local fauna, but are not represented by recovery age.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 80%

Soundscapes and deep learning enable tracking biodiversity recovery in tropical forests

Müller,

Mitesser,

Schaefer

et al. 2023

Nat Commun

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Tropical forest recovery is fundamental to addressing the intertwined climate and biodiversity loss crises. While regenerating trees sequester carbon relatively quickly, the pace of biodiversity recovery remains contentious. Here, we use bioacoustics and metabarcoding to measure forest recovery post-agriculture in a global biodiversity hotspot in Ecuador. We show that the community composition, and not species richness, of vocalizing vertebrates identified by experts reflects the restoration gradient. Two automated measures – an acoustic index model and a bird community composition derived from an independently developed Convolutional Neural Network - correlated well with restoration (adj-R² = 0.62 and 0.69, respectively). Importantly, both measures reflected composition of non-vocalizing nocturnal insects identified via metabarcoding. We show that such automated monitoring tools, based on new technologies, can effectively monitor the success of forest recovery, using robust and reproducible data.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 80%

Soundscapes and deep learning enable tracking biodiversity recovery in tropical forests

Müller,

Mitesser,

Schaefer

et al. 2023

Nat Commun

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“…To assess the most appropriate management strategies for natural regeneration, we need to identify the composition and con guration of landscapes that enable or obstruct frugivore seed dispersal into open areas [33][34][35][36]. Recent evidence highlights the correlation between landscape forest cover and forest regeneration [37]. However, the mechanisms underpinning this pattern haven't been explored.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frugivores enhance potential carbon recovery in fragmented tropical landscapes

Bello,

Crowther,

Ramos

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Forest restoration is fundamental to overcoming biodiversity crises and climate change. However, restoration success remains challenging. In tropical forests, animals can improve forest recovery as they disperse > 70% of tree species. Until now, representing animals in restoration and climate change policies remains challenging because we lack a quantitative assessment of their contribution to forest and carbon recovery. Here, we used individual-based models to assess frugivore-mediated seed rain in open areas along a fragmentation gradient. Movements of large birds were limited in landscapes with > 40% forest cover, although small birds continued to disperse seeds. Large birds disperse seeds from late-successional species with higher carbon-storage potential. Therefore, their restricted movement reduced by 35% the potential carbon that can be absorbed. Maintaining forest cover > 40% is essential to optimize animals' contribution to restoration success. In contrast, active restoration (e.g., planting trees) is required in fragmented landscapes to achieve carbon and biodiversity targets.

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“…We then calculated the Akaike information criterion corrected for small samples (AIC c ) of all models (null, linear, and nonlinear) across all 13 scales. Following several studies of the scale of effect (e.g., Arroyo‐Rodríguez, Rito, et al, 2023; Jackson & Fahrig, 2015), we identified the model with the highest empirical support (i.e., with the lowest AIC c ; Burnham & Anderson, 2002) as the best model. We then compared the best linear model, the best nonlinear model, and the null model considering their relative empirical support (ΔAIC c ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The smallest scale was selected so that it included all subsamples in each landscape, and the largest one to avoid landscape overlapping, which can decrease both the variability of the explanatory variable and the independence among landscapes (Eigenbrood et al, 2011;Pasher et al, 2013). We also did not consider larger scales because there is evidence that the number of tropical trees in human-modified landscapes is strongly related to forest cover in 1-km-radius landscapes (Arroyo-Rodríguez, Rito, et al, 2023), and we found no evidence that there existed stronger forest loss effects at larger scales (see the scales of effect of forest cover in Table 1).…”

Section: Landscape Forest Covermentioning

confidence: 99%

Maintenance of different life stages of old‐growth forest trees in deforested tropical landscapes

Martínez‐Ruiz,

Arroyo‐Rodríguez,

Arasa‐Gisbert

et al. 2024

Ecology

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Tropical tree species are increasingly being pushed to inhabit deforested landscapes. The habitat amount hypothesis posits that, in remaining forest patches, species diversity in equal‐sized samples decreases with decreasing forest cover in the surrounding landscape. We tested this prediction by taking into account three important factors that can affect species responses to forest loss. First, forest loss effects can be linear (proportional) or nonlinear, as there can be threshold values of forest loss beyond which species extirpation may be accelerated. Second, such effects are usually scale dependent and may go unnoticed if assessed at suboptimal scales. Finally, species extirpation may take decades to become evident, so the effects of forest loss can be undetected when assessing long‐lived organisms, like adult old‐growth forest trees. Here, we evaluated the linear and nonlinear effects of landscape forest loss across different spatial scales on site‐scale abundance and diversity of old‐growth forest trees, separately for four plant‐life stages (seeds, saplings, juveniles, and adults) in two rainforest regions with different levels of deforestation. We expected stronger (and negative) forest loss effects on early plant‐life stages, especially in the region with the highest deforestation. Surprisingly, in 13 of 16 study cases (2 responses × 4 life stages × 2 regions), null models showed higher empirical support than linear and nonlinear models at any scale. Therefore, the species richness and abundance of local tree assemblages seem to be weakly affected by landscape‐scale forest loss independently of the spatial scale, life stage, and region. Yet, as expected, the predictive power of forest cover was relatively lower in the least deforested region. Our findings suggest that landscape‐scale forest loss is poorly related to site‐scale processes, such as seed dispersal and seedling recruitment, or, at least, such effects are too small to shape the abundance and diversity of tree assemblages within forest patches. Therefore, our findings do not support the most important prediction of the habitat amount hypothesis but imply that, on a per‐area basis, a unit of habitat (forest) in a highly deforested landscape has a conservation value similar to that of a more forested one, particularly in moderately deforested rainforests.

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Landscape-scale forest cover drives the predictability of forest regeneration across the Neotropics

Cited by 14 publications

References 71 publications

Soundscapes and deep learning enable tracking biodiversity recovery in tropical forests

Soundscapes and deep learning enable tracking biodiversity recovery in tropical forests

Frugivores enhance potential carbon recovery in fragmented tropical landscapes

Maintenance of different life stages of old‐growth forest trees in deforested tropical landscapes

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