Robin L Chazdon

• Ph.D. Cornell University
• Professor at University of the Sunshine Coast

Extensive forest restoration is a key strategy to meet nature-based sustainable development goals and provide multiple social and environmental benefits¹. Yet achieving forest restoration at scale requires cost-effective methods². Tree planting in degraded landscapes is a popular but costly forest restoration method that often results in less biodi...

The density of wood is a key indicator of the carbon investment strategies of trees, impacting productivity and carbon storage. Despite its importance, the global variation in wood density and its environmental controls remain poorly understood, preventing accurate predictions of global forest carbon stocks. Here we analyse information from 1.1 mil...

To investigate whether and how Social Innovation (SI) can contribute to transformative change, we explored nine Native Seed Collectors Networks (NSCNs) in Brazil. Employing Social Network Analysis, we delved into the organisational structure of four NSCNs. Additionally, we identified five instances of social innovations (SIs) using the guiding ques...

Forest restoration is gaining momentum as a natural climate solution to provide carbon dioxide removal while also addressing the biodiversity crisis. Globally, three primary restoration strategies—natural regeneration, assisted natural regeneration, and active restoration—have been adopted. However, inconsistent monitoring of forest dynamics mean l...

The interspecific relationship between functional traits and tree seedling performance can be inconsistent, potentially due to site-to-site or microsite variation in environmental conditions. Studies of seedling traits and performance often focus on above-ground traits, despite the importance of below-ground resource acquisition and biomass allocat...

Broad-leaved monocot herbs form one of the most common and diverse growth forms of Neotropical plants. Their significance and frequency of occurrence is particularly notable in the understories of tropical rainforests, where they form a dominant element. We assessed and quantified changes in the cover and diversity of understory herb communities in...

Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) is a set of restoration strategies and interventions primarily based on natural regeneration, aimed at accelerating succession and providing multiple benefits in degraded ecosystems and landscapes. These strategies have the potential to significantly contribute to global Forest and Landscape Restoration efforts....

Aim Successional changes in functional diversity provide insights into community assembly by indicating how species are filtered into local communities based on their traits. Here, we assess successional changes in taxonomic and functional richness, evenness and redundancy along gradients of climate, soil pH and forest cover. Location Neotropics....

The emergence of alternative stable states in forest systems has significant implications for the functioning and structure of the terrestrial biosphere, yet empirical evidence remains scarce. Here, we combine global forest biodiversity observations and simulations to test for alternative stable states in the presence of evergreen and deciduous for...

Secondary tropical forests play an increasingly important role in carbon budgets and biodiversity conservation. Understanding successional trajectories is therefore imperative for guiding forest restoration and climate change mitigation efforts. Forest succession is driven by the demographic strategies—combinations of growth, mortality and recruitm...

Aim Colombia has committed to ambitious forest restoration targets which include a 1 million ha Bonn Challenge commitment and 6.47–8.31 million ha (rehabilitation and restoration, respectively) under the National Restoration Plan. Determining where and how to implement programs to achieve these targets remains a significant challenge. Location Col...

The density of wood is a key indicator of trees’ carbon investment strategies, impacting productivity and carbon storage. Despite its importance, the global variation in wood density and its environmental controls remain poorly understood, preventing accurate predictions of global forest carbon stocks. Here, we analyze information from 1.1 million...

The Taskforce on Best Practices, established under the leadership of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is a collaborative effort of ca. 300 members from more than 100 global organizations that supports capacity development and knowledge dissemination to help achieve the vision of the United Nations Decade on Ecosyst...

The core principle shared by most theories and models of succession is that, following a major disturbance, plant–environment feedback dynamics drive a directional change in the plant community. The most commonly studied feedback loops are those in which the regrowth of the plant community causes changes to the abiotic (e.g. soil nutrients) or biot...

Nature-based climate solutions, such as forest landscape restoration, offer a promising approach to mitigate the effects of global climate change, conserve biodiversity, and enhance rural livelihoods. Heinrich et al. (Nature, 2023) used satellite observation products to assess rates and drivers of aboveground carbon accumulation in tropical recover...

Forests are a substantial terrestrial carbon sink, but anthropogenic changes in land use and climate have considerably reduced the scale of this system¹. Remote-sensing estimates to quantify carbon losses from global forests2–5 are characterized by considerable uncertainty and we lack a comprehensive ground-sourced evaluation to benchmark these est...

Large terrestrial herbivorous mammals (LTH‐mammals) influence plant community structure by affecting seedling establishment in mature tropical forests. Many of these LTH‐mammals frequent secondary forests, but their effects on seedling establishment in them are understudied, hindering our understanding of how LTH‐mammals influence forest regenerati...

Understanding what controls global leaf type variation in trees is crucial for comprehending their role in terrestrial ecosystems, including carbon, water and nutrient dynamics. Yet our understanding of the factors influencing forest leaf types remains incomplete, leaving us uncertain about the global proportions of needle-leaved, broadleaved, ever...

Based on sampling data, we propose a rigorous standardization method to measure and compare beta diversity across datasets. Here beta diversity, which quantifies the extent of among‐assemblage differentiation, relies on Whittaker's original multiplicative decomposition scheme, but we use Hill numbers for any diversity order q ≥ 0. Richness‐based be...

Determining the drivers of non-native plant invasions is critical for managing native ecosystems and limiting the spread of invasive species1,2. Tree invasions in particular have been relatively overlooked, even though they have the potential to transform ecosystems and economies3,4. Here, leveraging global tree databases5-7, we explore how the phy...

The core principle shared by most theories and models of succession is that plant-environment (PE) feedback dynamics drive a directional change in the plant community, following a major disturbance. The most commonly studied feedback loops are those in which the regrowth of the plant community causes changes to the biotic (e.g., dispersers) or abio...

Extensive forest restoration is a key strategy to meet nature-based sustainable development goals and provide multiple social and environmental benefits. Yet achieving forest restoration at scale requires cost-effective methods. Tree planting in degraded landscapes is a popular but costly forest restoration method, which often results in less biodi...

Secondary tropical forests play an increasingly important role for carbon budgets and biodiversity conservation. Understanding successional trajectories is therefore imperative for guiding forest restoration and climate change mitigation efforts. Forest succession is driven by the demographic strategies (combinations of growth, mortality and recrui...

1. Biodiversity is an important component of natural ecosystems, with higher species richness often correlating with an increase in ecosystem productivity. Yet, this relationship varies substantially across environments, typically becoming less pronounced at high levels of species richness. However, species richness alone cannot reflect all importa...

Aim Tropical forest succession and associated changes in community composition are driven by species demographic rates, but how demographic strategies shift during succession remains unclear. Our goal was to identify generalities in demographic trade‐offs and successional shifts in demographic strategies across Neotropical forests that cover a larg...

Free access link until April 28, 2023: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1gjBLcZ3WyGWm Ecosystem restoration conventionally focuses on ecological targets. However, while ecological targets are crucial to mobilizing political, social, and financial capital, they do not encapsulate the need to: integrate social, economic, and ecological dimensions and...

We present the results of a hybrid research design that borrows from both experimental techniques—experimental games—and observational techniques—surveys—to examine the relationships between basic human values and exposure to natural ecosystems, on the one hand, and collective action for resource governance, on the other. We initially hypothesize t...

Abandonment of agricultural lands promotes the global expansion of secondary forests, which are critical for preserving biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services. Such roles largely depend, however, on two essential successional attributes, trajectory and recovery rate, which are expected to depend on landscape-scale forest cover in non-lin...

Given the importance of species diversity as a tool for assessing recovery during forest regeneration and active restoration, robust approaches for assessing changes in tree species diversity over time are urgently needed. We assessed changes in tree species diversity during natural regeneration over 12–20 years in eight 1-ha monitoring plots in NE...

Community involvement is critical for the success of many interventions designed to promote reforestation. To secure this involvement, it helps to recognize that communities are heterogenous both within and among themselves and possess diverse mixes of livelihood assets required to implement reforestation. We explore the relationship between liveli...

There has never been a more pressing and opportune time for science and practice to collaborate towards restoration of the world's forests. Multiple uncertainties remain for achieving successful, long-term forest landscape restoration (FLR). In this article, we use expert knowledge and literature review to identify knowledge gaps that need closing...

Current policy is driving renewed impetus to restore forests to return ecological function, protect species, sequester carbon and secure livelihoods. Here we assess the contribution of tree planting to ecosystem restoration in tropical and sub-tropical Asia; we synthesize evidence on mortality and growth of planted trees at 176 sites and assess str...

Despite the critical role of seed dispersal for tree colonization during forest succession in wet tropical forests, successional trajectories of seed dispersal modes are poorly documented at the community level. Overall successional trends in wet tropical forests indicate that, over time, animal-dispersed and large-seeded species increase in relati...

p>In this article, the abstract has been revised such that “30% of the total CO₂ increase in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution” now reads “30% of the total CO₂ increase in the atmosphere, or 14% of total emissions, since the Industrial Revolution.” In addition, the second paragraph in the “Priority areas for resto...

Forests that regrow naturally on abandoned fields are important for restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services, but can they also preserve the distinct regional tree floras? Using the floristic composition of 1215 early successional forests (≤20 years) in 75 human-modified landscapes across the Neotropic realm, we identified 14 distinct floristi...

Mitigating climate change, preventing mass species extinctions, improving rural livelihoods, and disaster risk reduction are among today's most urgent challenges. To meet these challenges, a large number of social actors need to agree to engage and act collectively on Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR), ensuring its dual goal of restoring ecolo...

Tropical forest succession and associated changes in community composition are driven by species’ demographic rates, but how demographic strategies shift during succession remains unclear. To identify generalities in demographic trade-offs and successional shifts in demographic strategies, we quantified demographic rates of 787 tree species from tw...

Natural forest regrowth is a cost‐effective, nature‐based solution for biodiversity recovery, yet different socioenvironmental factors can lead to variable outcomes. A critical knowledge gap in forest restoration planning is how to predict where natural forest regrowth is likely to lead to high levels of biodiversity recovery, which is an indicator...

NASAs Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is collecting space-borne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDIs footprint-level (~25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a descript...

is collecting spaceborne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDI's footprint-level (~25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a description of the datasets used and the procedure for final...

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 i...

Significance Tropical forests disappear rapidly through deforestation but also have the potential to regrow naturally through a process called secondary succession. To advance successional theory, it is essential to understand how these secondary forests and their assembly vary across broad spatial scales. We do so by synthesizing continental-scale...

Large-scale restoration of degraded natural, semi-natural, production, cultural and urban ecosystems is needed to meet the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To support and scale up efforts to address the urgent need to restore degraded ecosystems worldwide, the United Nations (UN) Gen�eral Assembly proclaimed 2021–2030 as...

Successional dynamics of plants and animals during tropical forest regeneration have been thoroughly studied, while fungal compositional dynamics during tropical forest succession remain unknown, despite the crucial roles of fungi in ecological processes. We combined tree data and soil fungal DNA metabarcoding data to compare richness and community...

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration offers immense potential to return hundreds of millions of hectares of degraded tropical landscapes to functioning ecosystems. Well-designed restoration can tackle multiple Sustainable Development Goals, driving synergistic benefits for biodiversity, ecosystem services, agricultural and timber production, and...

Forest and landscape restoration (FLR) aims to simultaneously restore ecological functionality to deforested or degraded landscapes and ensure the provision of ecosystem services essential for human well-being. Interest in FLR has followed the ambitious commitments made to restore degraded forest by 2030 under the Bonn Challenge and the New York De...

Remote sensors, onboard orbital platforms, aircraft, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a promising technology to enhance our understanding of changes in ecosystem composition, structure, and function of forests, offering multi-scale monitoring of forest restoration. UAV systems can generate high-resolution images that provide accur...

The urgency of restoring ecosystems to improve human wellbeing and mitigate climate and biodiversity crises is attracting global attention. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) is a global call to action to support the restoration of degraded ecosystems. And yet, many forest restoration efforts, for instance, have failed to meet resto...

Forest restoration targets are often planned, implemented, measured and reported based on few short‐term lagging indicators (i.e. indicators of realised outcomes), such as the number of seedlings and area planted. We propose the use of leading indicators, which denote likelihood of a certain outcome (e.g. odds that seedlings are of quality and prop...

Tropical forest regeneration after abandonment of former agricultural land depends critically on the input of tree seeds, yet seed dispersal is increasingly disrupted in contemporary human‐modified landscapes. Here, we introduce the concept of seed‐rain–successional feedbacks as a deterministic process in which seed rain is shaped by successional d...

Natural regeneration of forests has significantly led to increased native forest cover in some regions. Several studies have explored the spatial drivers of forest cover increase, yet little is known about their effects on forest structure and species richness and diversity. We quantified the effects of local (forest age, remnant Eucalyptus basal a...

Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) is considered worldwide as a powerful approach to recover ecological functionality and to improve human well-being in degraded and deforested landscapes. The literature produced by FLR programs could be a valuable tool to understand how they align with the existing principles of FLR. We conducted a systematic...

Studies in low-diversity temperate forests clearly establish that thinning leads to increased growth of remaining trees. However, few studies have investigated the long-term impacts of thinning regimes on the growth responses of tropical timber species. In this study, we analysed data collected over a period of 46 years to assess the long-term grow...

Extensive ecosystem restoration is increasingly seen as being central to conserving biodiversity¹ and stabilizing the climate of the Earth². Although ambitious national and global targets have been set, global priority areas that account for spatial variation in benefits and costs have yet to be identified. Here we develop and apply a multicriteria...

Changes in leaf physiological trait indicators and shifts in their relationships are expected to reveal plant ecological strategies during succession, and how they interact with the changing environment are thought to be useful in forest restoration and management. In this study, 9 physiological trait indicators, 7 leaf structural and chemical trai...

Knowing which restoration approach provides the best returns on investment for accumulating carbon is essential to foster restoration planning, financing, and implementation. Here, we explored the cost-effectiveness and drivers of above-ground and soil carbon accumulation in restored forests across an agricultural landscape of Brazil's Atlantic For...

To constrain global warming, we must strongly curtail greenhouse gas emissions and capture excess atmospheric carbon dioxide1,2. Regrowing natural forests is a prominent strategy for capturing additional carbon³, but accurate assessments of its potential are limited by uncertainty and variability in carbon accumulation rates2,3. To assess why and w...

Natural regeneration is key for large-scale forest restoration, yet it may lead to different biodiversity outcomes depending on socio-environmental context. We combined the results of a global meta-analysis to quantify how biodiversity recovery in naturally regenerating forests deviates from biodiversity values in reference old-growth forests, with...

Forest and landscape restoration is a promising strategy for improving water, energy and food securities. We advocate that ‘forest security’ should form a fourth, foundational dimension of a novel water, energy, food and forest security nexus framework. Key principles of this new framework support an integrated role of forests in sustainable develo...

Las iniciativas de la restauración del paisaje forestal pueden verse obstaculizadas por falta de comunicación o tal vez por la superposición entre sectores, políticas no alineadas con un objetivo común y por desbalances de información y poder tanto al interior como entre diferentes niveles de gobierno. Es necesario enfocarse en cómo funcionan los a...

Drone-based remote sensing is a promising new technology that combines the benefits of ground-based and satellite-derived forest monitoring by collecting fine-scale data over relatively large areas in a cost-effective manner. Here, we explore the potential of the GatorEye drone-lidar system to monitor tropical forest succession by canopy structural...

Forest and landscape restoration (FLR) is being carried out across the world to meet ambitious global goals. However, the scale of these efforts combined with the timeframe in which they are supposed to take place may compromise the quality of restoration, and thus limit the persistence of restoration on the landscape. This paper presents a synthes...

Governance arrangements directly influence decision making processes and the degree to which different stakeholder groups are engaged in planning, implementing, and receiving benefits from Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR). Narrow institutional and agency mandates must be better aligned to permit new ways of governing landscapes that are cente...

Aim Mapping tree species richness across the tropics is of great interest for effective conservation and biodiversity management. In this study, we evaluated the potential of full‐waveform lidar data for mapping tree species richness across the tropics by relating measurements of vertical canopy structure, as a proxy for the occupation of vertical...

Existing guidelines and best-practices documents do not satisfy, at present, the need for guiding implementation of Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) based on core principles. Given the wide range of FLR practices and the varied spectrum of actors involved, a single working framework is unlikely to be effective, but tailored working frameworks...

Legumes provide an essential service to ecosystems by capturing nitrogen from the atmosphere and delivering it to the soil, where it may then be available to other plants. However, this facilitation by legumes has not been widely studied in global tropical forests. Demographic data from 11 large forest plots (16–60 ha) ranging from 5.25° S to 29.25...

Globally, Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) is gaining widespread recognition from governments and policymakers for its potential to restore key ecosystem services and to improve human wellbeing. We organized an international conference on FLR, titled—Forest and Landscape Restoration: Making it Happen, between 25–27 February 2019 in Manila, th...

Mensajes principales • En condiciones apropiadas, las tierras que fueron sometidas al uso agrícola o pastoril pueden revertir a bosques mediante el proceso de regeneración natural ya sea de forma asistida o sin asistencia. Estos nuevos bosques conservan biodiversidad, brindan un amplio espectro de bienes y servicios ecosistémicos, y apoyan econom...

E cosystem restoration can provide multiple benefits to people and help to achieve multiple Sustainable Development Goals 1-3 , including climate change mitigation 4 and nature conservation 5. Thus, 47 countries have collectively committed to have 150 and 350 million hectares of degraded lands under restoration by 2020 and 2030, respectively, and h...

Lianas are woody vines, rooted in the soil, and supported physically by trees. Lianas contribute to forest ecosystem functioning globally, but especially in the tropics and subtropics. However, prolific liana growth following heavy disturbance frequently affects subsequent recovery of forest tree diversity, biomass, structure, and function. Underst...

Under suitable conditions, deforested land used for agricultural crops or pastures can revert to forest through the assisted or unassisted process of natural regeneration. These naturally regenerating forests conserve biodiversity, provide a wide array of ecosystem goods and services, and support rural economies and livelihoods. Based on studies in...

Large‐scale forest restoration relies on approaches that are cost‐effective and economically attractive to farmers, and in this context agroforestry systems may be a valuable option. Here, we compared ecological outcomes among (1) 12–15 year old coffee agroforests established with several native shade trees, (2) 12–15 year old high‐diversity restor...

Protecting biodiversity, either for its own sake or for its value to humanity, is a principal goal of conservation efforts worldwide. For this reason, many studies on the social science of resource management and governance seek to quantify biodiversity outcomes. Here, we focus on the International Forestry Resources and Institutions program to dem...

High costs of tree planting are a barrier to meeting global forest restoration targets. Natural forest regeneration is more cost‐effective than tree planting, but its potential to foster restoration at scale is poorly understood. We predict, map, and quantify natural regeneration potential within 75.5 M ha of deforested lands in the Brazilian Atlan...

Litterfall and litter decomposition are key elements of nutrient cycling in tropical forests, a process in which decomposer communities such as macro‐arthropods play a critical role. Understanding the rate and extent to which ecosystem function and biodiversity recover during succession is useful to managing the growing area of tropical successiona...

Extensions of forest-transition theory to the tropics often depict sustained expansions of planted tree cover and corresponding long-term net gains in total tree cover. To explore the patterns and implications of continued tropical planted tree-cover expansion, we profiled sequences of tree-cover change over 1990–2010 according to Landsat imagery f...

International forest landscape restoration commitments have promoted the restoration of millions of hectares of degraded and deforested lands globally, but few forest restoration approaches provide both ecologically‐sound and financially‐viable solutions for achieving the spatial scale proposed. One potential revenue source for restoration is selec...

Regeneration of tropical secondary forests depends critically on seed input, and yet successional dynamics of seed dispersal remain poorly understood. We investigated the role of stochastic vs. deterministic processes in structuring seed rain in successional forests using four years of seed rain data collected at two time periods in four tropical s...

A high level of variation of biodiversity recovery within a landscape during forest restoration presents obstacles to ensure large‐scale, cost‐effective and long‐lasting ecological restoration. There is an urgent need to predict landscape variation in forest restoration success at a global scale. We conducted a meta‐analysis comprising 135 study la...