Selecting plant species for practical restoration of degraded lands using a multiple-trait approach

• DOI: 10.1111/aec.12470
• Publication Date: 2016-11-25T04:52:45Z
• Authors: Tereza C. Giannini; Ana M. Giulietti; Raymond M. Harley; Pedro L. Viana; Rodolfo Jaffe; Ronnie Alves; Carlos E. Pinto; Nara F. O. Mota; Cecílio F. Caldeira; Vera L. Imperatri...; Antonio E. Furtini; Jose O. Siqueira
• Keywords: Trait; Restoration Ecology; Functional ecology

Ecological restoration is essential in rehabilitating degraded areas and safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystem services human welfare. Using functional traits to plan strategies has been suggested as they are the main ecological attributes that underlie processes services. However, few studies have translated theory into actual practices can be easily used by different stakeholders. In this article, we applied a multiple-trait approach select plant species for of lands inside Brazilian Amazon Forests. We selected 10 encompassing ease management, geographical distribution interactions with animals other scored these using 118 native species. Then, ranked all according total number exhibited obtain list 53 highly addition, employed non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) assess variation across entire group Based on results, subset maximizes diversity (high variability). performed sparse linear discriminant analysis (SLDA) highlight minimum set effectively discriminate botanical families. The final their importance preserving not only historical reference focused but also its restore interaction local fauna, enrich food chain guarantee communities.