DOI: 10.5061/dryad.12jm63z5p
title: Systematic review of field research reveals critical shortfalls for restoration of tropical grassy biomes

description: Scientists and policymakers are becoming aware of the pressing need to
 restore tropical grassy biomes (TGB), which are home to unique
 biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services to hundreds of
 millions of people. However, TGB face increasing threats, including the
 forest- and tree-centric approaches that promote their degradation though
 we still lack a systematic assessment of where and how TGB restoration
 research has been done to guide policy and practice. We synthesised
 knowledge on field restoration experiments by conducting a systematic
 literature review to map TGB restoration field studies, examine the
 association of restoration techniques and degradations sources, and
 investigate the diversity of indicators used to monitor restoration
 outcomes.  TGB restoration was concentrated in Brazilian and
 Australian savannas, with large blindspots in Asia, Africa, and northern
 and western South America. Studies were largely context-dependent, with an
 inconsistent usage of restoration techniques to different sources of
 degradation. Less than half of the indicators evaluated were monitored
 consistently through time, often using a low-dimensional approach related
 to ecosystem functioning. Few studies manipulated fire, herbivores, and
 soils, the key drivers for the re-establishment of TGB dynamics.
 Unfortunately, many studies lacked negative (degraded ecosystems),
 positive (reference ecosystems) controls, or both, impairing attempts to
 robustly determine restoration outcomes.  Our overview of field
 research on TGB restoration highlights that research needs improvement to
 refine our ability to assess, plan, implement, and monitor restoration.
 Severe issues with experimental designs and data reporting are identified
 as barriers to finding generality and upscale TGB restoration to meet the
 goals of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.  Synthesis and
 implications: Our synthesis calls for enhanced field experiments,
 transparent data reporting, and quantitative syntheses to guide
 large-scale TGB restoration. The overall lack of knowledge on improving
 resilience and measuring outcomes hampers meaningful comparisons between
 studies and hinders synthetic views essential for determining appropriate
 restoration techniques for different degradation sources and suitable
 monitoring indicators. To overcome the scarcity of reliable and
 transparent data supporting TGB restoration, we propose a simple checklist
 for minimum research reporting information and a more complete
 multilingual standardized guideline.
description: We conducted a systematic literature review about field research
 restoration in Tropical Grassy Biomes (TGB) and retrieved information from
 the selected papers. We presented such information in two main datasets: a
 general dataset (data_review: geographic coordinates, biome type, sources
 of degradation for each restoration site, degradation and restoration time
 length, manipulation of TGB main drivers, and restoration techniques) and
 another dataset for the indicators used to measure restoration success and
 their monitoring frequency intervals and length. We also present datasets
 used to standardize degradation source and restoration techniques, which
 were used to make the alluvial graphs. 
description: # Systematic review of field research for restoration of tropical grassy
 biomes
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.12jm63z5p](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.12jm63z5p) Tropical grassy biomes (TGB) encompass the world’s ancient savannas, grasslands and shrublands which cover nearly 40% of the tropics, hold unique biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services. Nonetheless, these biomes have been threatened and destroyed while also being overlooked in restoration science, policy and practice. Aiming to support achieving the agenda for TGB restoration under the UN Restoration Decade and recognizing the importance of reviews and field restoration experiments. We ran a systematic literature survey and extracted data from 90 peer reviewed articles to provided a broad overview of TGB restoration field research. Therefore, this dataset contain information from different literature field restoration experiments, encompassing sources of degradation, restoration techniques and the indicators used for evaluating and monitoring restoration success. ## Description of the data and file structure This dataset is divided into different spreadsheets: * metadata_review: explains each of the collumns found in the 'review_data' spreadsheet * review_data: contain the main data extracted from the 90 elected papers in this literature review * metadata_attribute_monitoring: explains each of the collumns found in the 'attribute_monitoring_data' spreadsheet * attribute_monitoring_data: contain the data related to indicators used in restoration field research and their associated monitoring In our review we needed to standardize the degradation sources and restoration techniques self-reported in the articles in order to create workable alluvial graphs. Therefore, the next spreadsheets are derived from the raw data self-reported in the original papers and presented in the "review_data" spreadsheet. * metadata_degradation: explains each of the collumns found in the 'degradation_data' spreadsheet * degradation_data: contain data on how degradation information was standirdized to be used for the further analyses * metadata_restoration_technique: explains each of the collumns found in the 'restoration_technique_data' spreadsheet * restoration_technique_data: contain data on how restoration technique information was standirdized to be used for the further analyses * metadata_alluvial_general: explains each of the collumns found in the 'alluvial_general' spreadsheet * alluvial_general: data used to create the alluvial graph used to link degradation sources to restoration technique * metadata_alluvial_two-three_deg: explains each of the collumns found in the 'alluvial_two-three_degradation' spreadsheet * alluvial_two-three_degradation: data used to create the alluvial graph used to link degradation with two or three sources to restoration technique ## Sharing/Access information Data was derived from literature peer reviewed articles and the list with the 90 articles can be found in the supplementary material of Medeiros et al. 2024 - Systematic review of field research reveals critical shortfalls for restoration of tropical grassy biomes (Journal of Applied Ecology) ##