Local tropical forest restoration strategies affect tree recruitment more strongly than does landscape forest cover

Developing restoration strategies that accelerate natural successional processes and are resource‐efficient is critical to facilitating tropical forest recovery across millions of hectares of deforested lands in the tropics.

We compared tree recruitment after a decade in three restoration treatments (natural regeneration, applied nucleation/island tree planting and plantation) and nearby reference forest in the premontane rain forest zone in southern Costa Rica. The study was replicated at 13 sites with a range of surrounding forest cover, enabling us to evaluate the relative influence of local restoration treatments and landscape forest cover on tree recruitment.

Density of small‐seeded (<5 mm), animal‐dispersed recruits was lower in natural regeneration than in applied nucleation, plantation or reference forest plots. Species richness, species density and density of medium (5–10 mm)‐ and large (>10 mm)‐seeded, animal‐dispersed recruits were greatest in reference forest, in...