@phdthesis{Damptey2023, author = {Damptey, Frederick Gyasi}, title = {Effects of forest restoration on ecosystem attributes in a post-mining area in Ghana}, doi = {10.26127/BTUOpen-6258}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:co1-opus4-62580}, school = {BTU Cottbus - Senftenberg}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Approaches to restore post-mining areas should provide sustainable solutions for recovering biodiversity and ecosystem services in regions experiencing massive deforestation. Key components that are impacted by surface mining activities and that restoration intervention should therefore target are biodiversity attributes and ecosystem service provisioning. The consequences of restoration decisions in post-mining areas in the Afrotropical region (here Ghana) remain understudied. To this end, l assessed levels of soil properties, biodiversity and ecosystem service in a post-mining area after two decades of active forest restoration by comparing them to attributes of the surrounding dominant land-use types. l hypothesized that (i) the interventions applied to restore and manage a post-mining area improve ecosystem attributes beyond conditions observed in the alternative dominant land-use types and even reaching levels comparable to reference forest (Chapter III), (ii) soil conditions and the functional structure of tree communities drive ecosystem functions and multifunctionality, with highest multifunctionality levels in the restored and natural forests (Chapter IV), (iii) the structure of tree communities coupled with pronounced climatic seasonality support a higher number of arthropods and arthropod functional groups particularly in the wet season and in structurally heterogeneous land-use types (Chapter V), and (iv) active forest restoration enhances the levels of ecosystem service provision similar to the reference forest with possible trade-offs or synergies among individual ecosystem services across forest types (Chapter VI). Chapter I provides an introduction to deforestation, and further highlights global and national initiatives, including active forest restoration, to reverse or minimize the impacts of tropical deforestation. Chapter II details the methodological approaches applied for sampling. Chapter III focussed on soil properties in addition to below and above-ground biomass of trees. The characteristic soil attributes for the restored forest were not significantly different from those in the reference forest, except for bulk density and base saturation, but differed significantly from attributes in all other land-use types. Chapter IV focussed on how the functional structure of tree communities affects the provision of ecosystem services. For functional composition, both the leaf economic spectrum and the seed mass dimensions separated different land-use types. Chapter V addresses the research question on how post-mining restoration affects arthropod communities. Communities of ground-active arthropods differed significantly between land-use types depending on the season. By quantifying the various ecosystem attributes in the field and transforming them into ecosystem service proxies, l could primarily identify synergies with no apparent trade-off between ecosystem services across the forest land-use types (Chapter VI).}, subject = {Arthropods; Biodiversity; Ecosystem services; Ghana; Post-mining restoration; Gliederf{\"u}ßer; Biodiversit{\"a}t; {\"O}kosysteme; Ghana; Rekultivierung; Physikochemische Bodeneigenschaft; Biodiversit{\"a}t; {\"O}kosystemdienstleistung}, language = {en} }