Associations between socio-environmental factors and landscape-scale biodiversity recovery in naturally regenerating tropical and subtropical forests

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 structural equation modeling, to identify direct and indirect associations between socioeconomic, biophysical and ecological factors and deviation in biodiversity recovery at a landscape scale. Low deviation within a landscape means higher chances of multiple sites in naturally regenerating forests successfully recovering biodiversity compared to reference forests. Deviation in biodiversity recovery was directly negatively associated with the percentage of cropland, forest cover, and positively associated with the percentage of urban areas in the surrounding landscape. These three factors mediated the indirect associations with rural populati...

自然更新（Natural Regeneration）是大规模森林修复的核心途径，但其所产生的生物多样性结局会因社会-环境背景的差异而有所不同。本研究整合了一项全球荟萃分析的结果，结合结构方程模型（Structural Equation Modeling），量化了自然更新森林的生物多样性恢复与参照原始老龄林（Old-growth Forests）的生物多样性基准值之间的偏差程度，并识别了景观尺度下社会经济、生物物理与生态因子与生物多样性恢复偏差之间的直接与间接关联。某一景观内的偏差值越低，意味着该区域内多个自然更新森林样地相较于参照老龄林成功恢复生物多样性的概率越高。生物多样性恢复偏差与周边景观中的农田占比、森林覆盖率呈显著负相关，而与城镇用地占比呈显著正相关。上述三类因子介导了与农村人口的间接关联……