Unraveling the potential of SPONtaneous FORest ESTablishment for improving ecosystem functions and services in dynamic landscapes

欧盟生物多样性战略2020旨在建立绿色基础设施，并在2020年前恢复至少15%的退化生态系统。在这一战略中，森林发挥着关键作用，因为它们提供多种生态系统服务。欧洲的政策在原农田造林方面投入了巨大的努力，但在很大程度上忽视了通过自发森林建立被动景观恢复和碎片化的机会。然而，由于过去几十年来农业用地的广泛放弃，SFE在欧洲许多地区很常见。SFE通常导致许多小块森林没有或很少得到管理。与现有的半天然森林一起，这些新的森林斑块形成了一个栖息地网络，可以帮助维持生物多样性和生态系统服务。虽然SFE可能有助于创造多功能、多样化的景观，但迄今为止尚未得到生态和社会科学研究的重视。事实上，SFE通常被视为景观管理和保护的挑战而不是机遇。SPONFOREST将审查SFE作为一种具有成本效益和政治上可行的工具的潜力，以加强破碎景观中自我维持森林的多年生绿色基础设施。深入的生态学和社会学研究将促进对景观背景下森林更新的理解，分析新森林斑块的生态系统服务和危害，并评估利益相关者和广大公众对其的看法。地中海和温带景观的五个案例研究将使用这种方法来调查各种环境和社会政治条件下的SFE。SPONFOREST的生态研究将利用树木生态学、种群遗传学、功能生态学、遥感和景观分析等广泛的互补方法来分析SFE。将使用最先进的现场和实验室方法来收集高质量的数据，为旨在预测SFE作为树木生物学和景观背景的功能的机制框架提供信息。SPONFOREST的社会科学研究将结合标准化调查和与利益相关者和政策制定者的深入专家访谈，从需求的角度阐明这些新森林的社会观念、它们目前的用途和它们提供的生态系统服务，包括调节这种供应的治理选择。SPONFOREST将非常强调从生态学和社会学研究中获得的见解的详细综合，并将根据政策建议积极让决策者和专家参与对主要发现的跨学科评价。全面而独特的关键交付成果面向科学界、决策者、森林和景观管理者。因此，SPONFOREST应有助于在地方和欧洲范围内优化未来森林治理和管理的战略。

The EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020 aims to establish green infrastructures and to restore at least 15% of degraded ecosystems until 2020. In this strategy, forests play a key role since they provide multiple ecosystem services. European policy has invested great efforts in afforestation of former farmlands but has largely neglected opportunities for passive landscape restoration and defragmentation by spontaneous forest establishment (SFE). Yet, SFE is common in many parts of Europe due to the widespread abandonment of agricultural land use in past decades. SFE typically leads to many small forest patches that are not or little managed. Together with existing semi-natural forests, these new forest patches form a network of habitats that can help maintain biodiversity and ecosystem services. Although SFE may contribute to the creation of multifunctional, diverse landscapes, it has so far received little attention from ecological and social science research. In fact, SFE is often regarded as a challenge rather than an opportunity for landscape management and conservation.SPONFOREST will examine the potential of SFE as a cost-effective and politically feasible tool for reinforcing perennial green infrastructures of self-sustaining forests in fragmented landscapes. In-depth ecological and sociological studies will advance the understanding of forest regeneration in the landscape context, analyse ecosystem services and disservices of new forest patches and assess their perception by stakeholders and the greater public. Five case studies in Mediterranean and temperate landscapes will use this approach to investigate SFE under various environmental and socio-political conditions. The ecological research in SPONFOREST will analyse SFE with a broad spectrum of complementary approaches including dendroecology, population genetics, functional ecology, remote sensing, and landscape analysis. State-of-the-art field and laboratory methods will be used to gather high-quality data that inform a mechanistic framework aimed at forecasting SFE as a function of tree biology and the landscape context. The social science research of SPONFOREST will combine standardized surveys and in-depth expert interviews with stakeholders and policy makers to elucidate the societal perception of these new forests, their current use and the ecosystem services they supply from a demand perspective, including governance options to regulate this supply.SPONFOREST will place great emphasis on a detailed synthesis of the insights gained from ecological and sociological research, and will actively involve policy makers and experts in the transdisciplinary evaluation of key findings in view of policy recommendations. The comprehensive but distinct key deliverables address the scientific community, policy makers, forest and landscape managers. SPONFOREST should thus contribute to strategies that optimize future forest governance and management at local to European scales.