Restoring tropical forest composition is more difficult, but recovering tree-cover is faster, when neighbouring forests are young

Context Neighbouring forests constitute biological sources that enable the succession from species-poor systems, such as tree-plantings, to highly diverse forests. However, old forest patches are becoming rare in tropical agricultural landscapes. Objective We were interested in if, and how, spontaneous regeneration under tree-plantings reflects the age and the amount of the neighbouring forest cover. We anticipated that older forests promote a compositionally broader recovery in neighbouring tree-plantings, because older forests likely include disturbance-sensitive species, particularly within least deforested landscapes. Methods We studied twenty-seven restoration sites implemented as tree-plantings in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We quantified the effects of age and amount of neighbouring forest cover on structural and compositional characteristics of the regeneration community (dbh