Tiago Shizen Pacheco Toma

Questions: How can a reference framework be developed for the ecological restoration of the campo rupestre, a biodiverse Brazilian ecosystem? Specifically, what are the challenges posed by habitat heterogeneity and species turnover in the mountain range, and how can they be addressed to create ‘Blue Lists’, defined as habitat‐ and ecosystem‐specific reference species lists that guide assisted ecological restoration? Location: The campo rupestre ecosystem of Brazil's Espinhaço Mountain Range spans a strong latitudinal and altitudinal gradient of nearly 10 degrees, extending from the Southern Espinhaço in Minas Gerais to the Chapada Diamantina in Bahia. Methods: Phytosociological data from 20 studies and 101 species lists were analysed. Species were classified by substrate (quartzite and ferruginous) and habitat types, further divided into herbaceous and woody strata. A cluster analysis using Sørensen distance identified floristic clusters, while zeta diversity analyses evaluated species turnover at species, genus, and family levels. Phylogenetic and spatial signals were assessed to examine species co‐occurrence patterns. Results: A total of 1,126 plant species were identified, exhibiting significant compositional variation between substrates and habitat types. Floristic clusters demonstrated high species turnover, with few species shared across habitats. Phylogenetic analysis revealed convergent evolutionary patterns, and spatial analysis showed significant geographic clustering of species composition. Conclusions: Restoration efforts must account for habitat heterogeneity and substrate‐specific species compositions to prevent biotic homogenization and enhance ecosystem biodiversity and resilience. Detailed Blue Lists, defined as habitat‐specific target species lists, are critical for effective ecological restoration. Future studies should prioritize closing knowledge gaps, especially in understudied regions of the campo rupestre.

Although holding high levels of biodiversity and providing uncountable ecosystem services, wetlands remain poorly understood and protected, particularly in South America, where these ecosystems are being destroyed quickly by infrastructure facilities, land-use change, water pollution, and fire, mostly related to climatic triggers. Nevertheless, few studies have assessed and synthesized fire patterns among South American wetlands. The lack of an overarching view on this issue has constrained our knowledge of how fire patterns affect these ecosystem, and thus hindered integrated fire management at a large scale. Overlapping wetland maps to terrestrial ecoregions and satellite-derived fire activity indicators, we ranked ecoregions mostly affected by wetland fires. Of 109 South America’s ecoregions, the Pantanal, Cerrado, Llanos, Beni savanna, and Humid and Dry Chaco accounted for the most of fire foci on wetlands and the largest burned wetland area. There is a pressing need to create a cross national system based on warnings, helping decision-makers, local communities, scientists, and fire brigades to properly manage fires in South America’s wetlands at a large scale.

Dry grasslands of the Northwestern Mediterranean Basin are seminatural species‐rich ecosystems, composed of many annual species and some structuring perennial species. As these grasslands have been used as rangelands for centuries, human management (grazing; fire regimes) is one of their main ecological and evolutionary drivers, along with the Mediterranean climate. Despite EU conservation policy, damage to such grasslands still occurs and efficient ecological restoration is needed. This article reviews restoration constraints, effective techniques, and research perspectives for restoring them in the light of their ecological characteristics. Major restoration constraints specifically include (1) a poor contribution of the internal (seed bank) and external (seed rain) species pools, and (2) low establishment of some perennial species. The latter may be the result of the low seed quantity or quality of perennial species, stochastic or extended droughts, high soil nutrient content that may lead to competition (e.g. between weed and target species), inappropriate grazing management or fire regimes leading to shrub encroachment, or the death of target species seedlings in early stages of restoration. Successful restoration techniques include seeding, transplanting, hay transfer, and timely soil transfer, all of which have to be adapted to regional plant phenology and to local Mediterranean climate. They must be combined with appropriate grazing or fire management. Their success may depend on years with particular rainfall amounts or patterns or on particular target plant species. We discuss research perspectives contributing to a better understanding of seed dispersal, seedling recruitment, and soil processes and suggest the benefits of using ecosystem engineer species.

Galls are specific changes induced by insects on plant organs mainly through increases in plant cell number and/or size. Gall diversity is easy to recognize in the field because gallers are mostly species-specific, and thus each gall morphotype can be a proxy for a galling species. Insect galls are virtually unknown in Seasonal Deciduous and Semi-Deciduous forests of southern Brazil. Here, galls and host plants were surveyed between 2015 and 2017 in four forest fragments of Rio Grande do Sul State in these two vegetation types, in secondary-growth and areas under restoration. We recorded 89 gall morphotypes, with gallers belonging to Lepidoptera and Diptera, with the latter represented mainly by Cecidomyiidae. Galls were associated to 46 plant species in 27 families. Asteraceae, Piperaceae, Fabaceae, Myrtaceae and Lauraceae were the richest families in terms of galls, whilst Piper aduncum and Mikania glomerata were superhosts. Most galls occurred in leaves and shoots. The most common shapes were fusiform, globoid and lenticular. Forty-eight gall morphotype records are new for both Rio Grande do Sul and Brazil, an expressive number considering only two seasonal forest types sampled and few sampling points, showing how important surveys still are for these little know fauna both in taxonomic and ecological terms.

Including ecosystem functions into restoration ecology has been repeatedly suggested, yet there is limited evidence that this is taking place without bias to certain habitats, species, or functions. We reviewed the inclusion of ecosystem functions in restoration and potential relations to habitats and species by extracting 224 publications from the literature (2004–2013). Most studies investigated forests, fewer grasslands or freshwaters, and fewest wetlands or marine habitats. Of all studies, 14% analyzed only ecosystem functions, 44% considered both biotic composition and functions, 42% exclusively studied the biotic component, mostly vascular plants, more rarely invertebrates or vertebrates, and least often microbes. Most studies investigating ecosystem functions focused on nutrient cycling (26%), whereas productivity (18%), water relations (16%), and geomorphological processes (14%) were less covered; carbon sequestration (10%), decomposition (6%), and trophic interactions (6%) were rarely studied. Monitoring of ecosystem functions was common in forests and grasslands, but the functions considered depended on the study organisms. These associations indicate research opportunities for certain habitats, species, and functions. Overall, the call to include ecosystem functions in restoration has been heard; however, a lack of clarity about the ecosystem functions to be included and deficits of feasible field methods are major obstacles for a functional approach. Restoration ecology should learn from recent advances in rapid assessment of ecosystem functions, and by a closer integration with biodiversity–ecosystem functioning research. Not all functions need to be measured in all ecosystems, but more functions than the few commonly addressed would improve the understanding of restored ecosystems.