At the start of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030), the restoration of degraded ecosystems is more than ever a global priority. Tree planting will make up a large share of the ambitious restoration commitments made by countries around the world, but careful planning is needed to select species and seed sources that are suitably adapted to present and future restoration site conditions and that meet the restoration objectives. Here we present a scalable and freely available online tool, Diversity for Restoration (D4R), to identify suitable tree species and seed sources for climate‐resilient tropical forest landscape restoration. The D4R tool integrates (a) species habitat suitability maps under current and future climatic conditions; (b) analysis of functional trait data, local ecological knowledge and other species characteristics to score how well species match the restoration site conditions and restoration objectives; (c) optimization of species combinations and abundances considering functional trait diversity or phylogenetic diversity, to foster complementarity between species and to ensure ecosystem multifunctionality and stability; and (d) development of seed zone maps to guide sourcing of planting material adapted to present and predicted future environmental conditions. We outline the various elements behind the tool and discuss how it fits within the broader restoration planning process, including a review of other existing tools. Synthesis and applications. The Diversity for Restoration tool enables non‐expert users to combine species traits, environmental data and climate change models to select tree species and seed sources that best match restoration site conditions and restoration objectives. Originally developed for the tropical dry forests of Colombia, the tool has now been expanded to the tropical dry forests of northwestern Peru–southern Ecuador and the countries of Burkina Faso and Cameroon, and further expansion is underway. Acknowledging that restoration has a wide range of meanings and goals, our tool is intended to support decision making of anyone interested in tree planting and seed sourcing in tropical forest landscapes, regardless of the purpose or restoration approach.

Besides human-caused fires, lightning is the major reason for forest fire ignition in Austria. In order to analyse the causes of ignition and to characterise lightning-induced forest fires, fire records were compared with the real appearance of lightning events by using the Austrian Lightning Detection and Information System for the period from 1993 to 2010. A probability was estimated for each forest fire being caused by lightning by using a decision tree and decision matrices based on flash characteristics (e.g. amplitude, time, location). It could be shown that 15 % of documented forest fires were lightning-caused. Nearly all lightning-caused fires were found during the summer months, whereas almost 40 % of all fires occurring from June to August were naturally caused. Most lightning-caused fires took place in the south and east of Austria. Lightning fires were more frequent at higher altitudes and primarily affected conifer forests. The median burned area was lower than that for anthropogenic forest fires.

This study examined the impact of anthropogenic disturbances on species richness, pattern of diversity, forest structure and regeneration of tree species in the Madhupur Sal (Shorea robusta C.F. Gaertn) forests of Bangladesh. The forest sites were classified as low, medium and highly disturbed based on the intensity of historic and current anthropogenic impacts. Plant species richness and biological diversity varied along a disturbance gradient in different forest types. A total of 134 plant species were identified. The highest plant species richness (125 species) was found in the low disturbed forest type, and the lowest species richness (19 species) in the highly disturbed forest type. Plant density (except herbs and saplings) and basal area of mature trees declined with an increase in disturbance intensity. Only a few snags (4.4 ha⁻¹) were found in the low disturbed forest type. The diameter and height distributions revealed that the low disturbed forest type comprised a mixture of very young to giant trees, while the medium and highly disturbed forest types contained only young trees. The relative abundance of the early successional species, S. robusta,increased with the intensity of human disturbances due to its regeneration potential. Highly disturbed forests can no longer be considered natural habitats for natural plant species due to shifting cultivation and agroforestry.