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PLEASE NOTE: If a candidate gives a layman's talk, the livestream will start fifteen minutes earlier.

Tropical forests are home to an incredible variety of plants and animals, but they are shrinking fast due to deforestation and fragmentation. This not only causes species to disappear, it also disrupts vital processes such as seed dispersal. Our research looks at two ways to reverse these losses: protecting the forest that’s left, and letting new forest grow back naturally.

In a global study of 46 forest regions across six continents, we found that protected areas generally hold more bird species than unprotected forests—especially larger or more strictly protected ones. But in very fragmented landscapes, protection alone isn’t enough to maintain full biodiversity.

In Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, we studied how regenerating forests recover over time. We looked at fruit-eating animals and the plants they feed on, their ecological “traits”, and the diversity of soil microbes. The key finding: forests surrounded by other forest patches recover faster and more completely than those in isolated landscapes. They host more species, more unique ecological roles, and more complex plant–animal interactions. Surprisingly, forest age played little to no role in recovery, showing that time alone is not enough; connectivity is key. Some species, especially large fruit-eaters, were still missing even after decades of forest regeneration, showing that some functions may be slow or impossible to restore without better-connected landscapes.

The message is clear; to bring back healthy forests, we must protect what remains, restore degraded areas, and, crucially, connect them across the landscape.