Values of weedy regrowth for rainforest restoration

Summary Can weedy regrowth be sometimes useful in restoration? Former pastures, created historically by deforestation and other interventions but then retired from agricultural use, now provide a major opportunity for forest restoration. Globally, forest has begun to regenerate spontaneously at large scales on many such retired pasture lands. Additionally, non‐native species are increasingly often the first trees and shrubs to establish in this situation. Here, I consider the ecological processes that enable some of these species to be useful in restoring diverse rainforest communities of flora and fauna to disused pasture and other agricultural lands; in terms of both the generalised ecological mechanisms involved and specific cases in rainforest landscapes of eastern Australia. Ecological research has shown that regrowth trajectories which begin with dominance by non‐native trees and shrubs may of themselves sometimes transition over several decades towards dominance by native rainforest species, and that these novel ecosystems provide significant habitat for native fauna, as well as a range of ecosystem services. Their destruction in the name of weed control is likely to have an immediate adverse ecological impact. Alternatively, they could be managed and harnessed as a useful part of the practitioners' toolkit for rainforest restoration.