Assessing the context effect on forest restoration projects and investigating the consequences over ecosystem services

Abstract

Ecological restoration is regarded as one of the major tools for maintaining the supply of ecosystem services. The literature recognizes that the recovery of high diversity forest is feasible, even though unsuccessful attempts are still frequent in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest region. To underestimate constraints related to habitat configuration and local abiotic drivers may hide uncertainties and cause strategic failures. These constraints has been investigated by the PhD research project "To which extent is forest restoration effectivity restricted by landscape connectivity and soil degradation?" . This PhD project investigates degradation thresholds for restoration by surveying soil, biomass, and arboreal composition at restoration sites implemented by the "Riparian Forest Recovery Project" between the years 2007 and 2009 . In this complementary project, we propose to additionally investigate: 1- the land-use history impacts on reforestation performance; 2a- the association between conectivity edaphic constraints and the success of functional groups; and 2b-the implications for ecosystem services. The analyses will require a data set supplementation with land-use history information based on remote sensed imagery, and species traits data from literature. As the preliminary analyses indicates, the complementary results are going to provide some important benefits to the main project, improving the contribution to ecosystem models applied to the Brazilian Atlantic forest restoration, and supporting inferences on ecosystem services response. (AU)