Data from: Measuring the success of reforestation for restoring biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

Effective assessment of the success of ecological restoration projects is
critical in justifying the use of restoration in natural resource
management as well as improving best practice. One of the main goals of
ecological restoration is the recovery of ecosystem function, yet most
researchers assume that increasing species and or functional diversity
equates with restoration of ecosystem function, rather than empirically
demonstrating these mechanistic relationships. In this study, we assess
how dung beetle species diversity, community composition, functional
diversity and ecological functions vary along a restoration chronosequence
and compare restored areas with reference (rain forest) and degraded
(pasture) systems. We also directly investigate the dung beetle diversity
– ecosystem functioning relationship in the context of ecological rain
forest restoration by testing the predictive power of traditional
taxonomic indices and functional diversity metrics for functionality.
Species richness, abundance, biomass and functional richness all increased
with restoration age, with the oldest restoration sites being most similar
to rain forest, whereas functional evenness and functional divergence
decreased with restoration age. Community composition in the restored
areas was clearly progressing towards the rain forest sites and deviating
from the pasture sites with increasing restoration age. Secondary seed
dispersal rates increased with restoration age, but there was only a weak
positive relationship between dung removal and soil excavation and
restoration age. Biodiversity metrics explained 47–74% of the variation in
functions mediated by dung beetles; however, functional trait-based
indices provided greater explanatory power of functionality than
traditional species-based metrics. Synthesis and applications. Our results
provide empirical evidence on the potential of tropical forest restoration
to mitigate biodiversity losses, recovering not only faunal species
diversity, but also functional diversity and ecosystem functions in a
relatively short period of time. We also demonstrate that functional
trait-based metrics are better predictors of functionality than
traditional species-based metrics but that the relationship between
restoration age, diversity and ecosystem functioning is not
straightforward and depends on the functions, traits and metrics used.