FAPESP - Restoring Neotropical dry ecosystems - is plant functional composition the key to success?

Despite their global importance and poor protection, TDFS have been studied far less than other tropical forest ecosystems, particularly TDFS areas undergoing restoration. We aim to address this recently identified knowledge gap with the aim of improving the success of TDFS restoration. This project will provide the first assessment of the resilience of existing and restored TDFS to changing climate and climate extremes, through undertaking a comprehensive, community-scale assessment of traits which determine plant water-use, carbon production and nutrient-use strategies across restored TDFS sites. The information generated in this project will create a step-change in our current understanding of the function of restored and natural TDFS sites, facilitating development of state-of-the art vegetation models to improve climate prediction and the creation of new restoration policy through integrating with key stakeholders responsible for the creation and implementation of restoration strategies for Brazil. Our key aims are:
Aim 1: Evaluate ecosystem function in TDFS sites restored using different strategies.
Aim 2: Understand the pressures on TDFS from climate-change and climate extremes.
Aim 3: Improve policy and restoration strategies for the restoration of, and long-term resilience of TDFS in collaboration with the Brazilian government.

Tropical dry forests and savannas (TDFS) make up 34% of Brazil's land area and contain >50% of Brazil's plant species. More than 100 million people live in TDFS regions of Brazil and many of these people are from rural vulnerable communities who rely on essential ecosystem services TDFS provide. These services include: 1. water supply, shade and pollinators for Brazil's agricultural frontier; 2. national water security, with 43% of the surface water outside the Amazon falling in TDFS and supplying the aquifers which feed Brazil's three largest river basins; 3. a source of timber and food; 4. carbon storage for climate change mitigation; 5. areas of natural beauty, used extensively for tourism; 6. a living seed bank for >4500 woody plant species, many of which are endemic. Despite this, TDFS remain poorly protected with only 1.2% of dry forests and 7.5% of savannas in protected reserves and <10% of Brazil's dry forest and <20% of its savannahs remaining intact.
Recognising the social, economic and environmental implications of the current rates of loss of TDFS, the Brazilian government has responded by committing to restoring 120,000 km2 (an area about half the UK) of natural ecosystems by 2030, with a focus on TDFS. Brazil's Ministry for the Environment (ICMBio) and Ministry for Agriculture (EMBRAPA) have started implementing this restoration plan. However, success rates of restored TDFS areas remains very low, with high variability between areas subjected to varying restoration strategies. The reasons for low success and high variability between strategies remains unknown, hampering current ability to meet national restoration targets.
Until now, all TDFS restoration strategies have focused on re-creating the species composition observed in natural, undisturbed TDFS habitats. This focus has assumed that species diversity is synonymous with maximizing ecosystem productivity and resistance to climate variability, yet it ignores the suitability of these species to the new drier and disturbed environment they experience in degraded landscapes. The latest research from tropical rainforests broadly suggests that focusing only on species' diversity is too narrow. Instead, plant resource use strategies, and particularly hydraulic functional traits are likely to be the key to determining ecosystem-scale function and the resistance and resilience of TDFS ecosystems to current and future climate variability. To successfully protect and restore TDFS it is therefore vital that the current lack of understanding about ecosystem function and plant resource-use strategies in TDFS is addressed.

1. The Brazilian Government and NGOs: Our project partners (ICMBio, EMBRAPA, ISPN, PPBio) are central to the creation of new legislation in Brazil, designed to improve TDFS restoration success. However, the creation of this new legislation, is reliant on new scientific knowledge concerning which restoration techniques will provide long-term restoration success. From the project outset we will work with these beneficiaries to create new cutting-edge science determining which plant functional compositions will promote restoration success and resilience to future climate change, whilst maintaining the key ecosystem services TDFS provide. We will actively contribute to the development of the ICMBio technical restoration guides by the end of the project, which will be used to determine the strategic direction of the long-term restoration policy. In year 4 and beyond the project's key project partners will present our findings at multiagency working groups they participate in, which are targeted at creating new state-level restoration policy.

2. Local TDFS communities: TDFS house some of the poorest communities in Brazil. Through providing new research to increase TDFS restoration success, this project will facilitate long-term (beyond the project's lifetime) food, water and fuel security for poor TDFS communities. In years 3-4 of this project the new information we generate on restoration techniques will be used to support the creation of new seed markets (see Pathways to Impact). These markets will allow rural communities to sustainably harvest and sell seed for restoration, generating an alternative source of income and promoting social and economic development. Lastly, in years 3-4 of this project, we will be able to provide wealthier rural land owners with new advice to facilitate successful TDFS restoration to meet new government legislation on restoration of private land (see Pathways to Impact), in the most cost effective way.

3. Reserve managers: Managing TDFS reserves is challenging due to the multiple threats these areas face and the low success rates of restoration. Throughout the whole project lifecycle, from inception to closure, we will provide and disseminate new techniques on how to improve restoration success, working directly with reserve managers through collaborators in ICMBio, EMBRAPA, PPBio and ISPN. This will allow reserve managers to update their restoration practices, improving the long-term success and survival of TDFS reserves. Furthermore beyond the lifetime of this project we envisage the changes in restoration policy this project could generate leading to larger areas of TDFS being successfully restored and converted into reserves.

3. Global climate modellers and the IPCC: TDFS regions are a key driver of uncertainty in modelled global climate variability. CoI-Sitch is an author on the previous and future IPCC reports and CoI-Sitch and PI-Rowland closely collaborate with multiple IPCC authors, including Profs Collins, Friedlingstein, Cox, Betts and Dr. Jones. We can therefore communicate our work directly with scientists, with the potential to influence climate change policy at the highest level. Consequently beyond the lifetime of this project, we envisage our model developments in JULES facilitating our new TDFS specific PFTs to be used within global climate simulations by the IPCC, facilitating new, more appropriate climate change policy for TDFS.

4. The wider public: We will disseminate our work to a global audience via blogs, YouTube videos and a social media (e.g. ISPN website which receives >1 million hits per year), throughout the project. Public interest will ensure new TDFS restoration policy is given more consideration by policy makers. Furthermore an increase in the area of restored TDFS will feedback to provide long-term benefits to global populations for example maintenance of an important global biodiversity hot spot and long-term climate change mitigation