There is increasing interest in the restoration/regeneration of degraded tropical habitats yet the potential role of natural regenerators remains unclear. We test the hypothesis that the richness and functional diversity of terrestrial mammals differs between forest regrowth stages. We quantified the richness and functional diversity of eight terrestrial mammal seed-disperser species across a f...

Premise Epiphytes have commensal relationships with their host trees. Besides the influence of tree traits, little has been discussed concerning ecology epiphytes in disturbed habitats (e.g., pasture). We herein tested whether occurrences pasture and forest specialist pastures are affected differently by traits. hypothesized that (H1) richness abundance generalist would be positively associated...

The fruit-feeding guild of nymphalid butterflies was sampled at the Firestone Center for Restoration Ecology (FCRE) in southwestern Costa Rica to investigate the effects of four habitat types on species-richness. Species-richness was expected to differ among riparian forest, secondary forest, bamboo forest and pastureland. Over two years and 53 sampling days, 1456 fruit-feeding nymphalid butter...

Tropical forest restoration is becoming increasingly more applied to offset biodiversity loss and maintain ecosystem processes, but knowledge about its efficacy is still limited. We evaluated the success of tropical forest active restoration using dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) as bioindicators and combining measures of species diversity, composition and functional diversity. We assess...

A comprehensive set of 30-m resolution land coverage data of 2000 and 2010 was used for an analysis of the spatial heterogeneity of forest area change in early 21st century China. Four regression models were built to determine the current situation of the ‘forest transition’ in China. The results show that forest area in China has grown rapidly over this period such that total forest area has i...

This study aims to evaluate soil moisture and bulk density effects on penetration resistance dynamics of Dark Red Latosol, located in the Microregion of Goiânia, Goias. Area under rotating pasture were sampled 1) in lines and 2) between lines; 3) pasture renewal area; 4) area under Central Pivot; 5) area under no-tillage and 6) forest. Penetrometry tests were done for three different soil moist...

Soil moisture and temperature are important components to improve watershed management natural resource planning, especially in areas where water supplies limited during dry seasons. Thus, this study aimed evaluate the installation calibration of five sensors (Drill & Drop) as well consistency results obtained for soil forest, pasture, forest-pasture transition pasture-urban Itacaiúnas Rive...

A community of small mammals was studied in seasonal semideciduous submontane forest in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. This study evaluated the use of edge and matrix pasture, by different small mammal species. Overall, 31 areas were studied, with a total sampling effort of 33,800 trap x nights. Only seven of the 25 species captured in the study sites were able to use the pasture matrix; we ...

Objectives: To explore whether forest coverage affects the rate of deaths due to cancers in Japan, we investigated the relationships between the percentage of forest coverage and standardized mortality ratios due to cancers in all prefectures in Japan. Methods: Data on the percentage of forest coverage in all prefectures in Japan were collected from the database of the Forestry Agency of Japan....