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Rain‐triggered landslides cause significant socioeconomic loss and long‐term ecological impact, disrupting topsoil and seed banks and creating unfavourable conditions for vegetation establishment. Although hazard management effectively reduces landslide risk, most management plans primarily focus on the societal impacts (loss of property and human lives), while environmental impacts related to landslide occurrence and recurrence are often overlooked. The role of different vegetation types in mitigation strategies remains uncertain due to the time and spatial constraints of traditional field study methods. Therefore, the role of vegetation in landslide restoration should be reconsidered. In this study, we investigated post‐landslide vegetation recovery patterns, analysed the duration of vegetation recovery, identified factors influencing these patterns, examined the role of forests in occurrence and recurrence probability and explored the implications of these findings for each element within an integrated management framework for landslide restoration. We utilised long‐term landslide inventory data (1924–2018) covering the entire city of Hong Kong (~1100 km2) and combined it with structural data derived from airborne LiDAR scanning in 2020 to capture landslide recovery. Our findings revealed significant differences in recovery trajectories between the main bodies and foot areas of scars, with the former taking approximately 46 years to recover and the latter recovering in about 38 years. Scar age, average wind speed, elevation and proximity to the forest were identified as key factors influencing structural recovery on scars, while the proximity to forest also regulated recovery rate of scars. We observed decreased landslide occurrence in forested areas, with recurrent landslides primarily appearing on older, unrecovered scars on barren hillsides. Synthesis and applications: Our research highlights the dynamic patterns, recovery time and drivers of vegetation recovery on landslide scars; and the higher probability of landslide occurrence in non‐forest areas and increased recurrence on bare, low vegetated scars. This information provides valuable insights for informing restoration efforts and managing landslide‐prone areas. Such knowledge is crucial for developing effective mitigation strategies and enhancing the resilience of vulnerable ecosystems facing climate change and increased frequency of extreme weather events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: To what degree plant ecosystems thermoregulate their canopy temperature (Tc) is critical to assess ecosystems' metabolisms and resilience with climate change, but remains controversial, with opinions from no to moderate thermoregulation capability.With global datasets of Tc, air temperature (Ta), and other environmental and biotic variables from FLUXNET and satellites, we tested the 'limited homeothermy' hypothesis (indicated by Tc & Ta regression slope < 1 or Tc < Ta around midday) across global extratropics, including temporal and spatial dimensions.Across daily to weekly and monthly timescales, over 80% of sites/ecosystems have slopes ≥1 or Tc > Ta around midday, rejecting the above hypothesis. For those sites unsupporting the hypothesis, their Tc–Ta difference (ΔT) exhibits considerable seasonality that shows negative, partial correlations with leaf area index, implying a certain degree of thermoregulation capability. Spatially, site‐mean ΔT exhibits larger variations than the slope indicator, suggesting ΔT is a more sensitive indicator for detecting thermoregulatory differences across biomes. Furthermore, this large spatial‐wide ΔT variation (0–6°C) is primarily explained by environmental variables (38%) and secondarily by biotic factors (15%).These results demonstrate diverse thermoregulation patterns across global extratropics, with most ecosystems negating the 'limited homeothermy' hypothesis, but their thermoregulation still occurs, implying that slope < 1 or Tc < Ta are not necessary conditions for plant thermoregulation. See also the Commentary on this article by Drake, 238: 921–923. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landslides are common in tropical and subtropical regions with hilly terrains and heavy rainstorms, and can cause significant economic, ecological, and social impacts. Natural forest succession is usually slow on landslides due to poor soil structure and lack of woody plant seeds, and often comes with a higher risk of repeated landslides. Active forest restoration has been increasingly suggested as an effective alternative to restore exposed landslide scars. Here, we evaluated the effectiveness of using different seed coatings and surface soil treatments on seed germination and seedling establishment of pioneer and late‐successional tree species on landslide scars in Hong Kong. Our results show that biochar‐dominant seed coating boosted seed germination rate by an additional 9.33% (Standard error = 0.04), while clay‐dominant seed coating did not show significant effects. The effects on seedling survival were not significant in both seed coating and surface soil treatments. Our results also show that large seed and later successional species have significantly higher germination rates than pioneer species and are able to successfully establish on landslide sites. These results suggest that direct seeding using a biochar seed coat with large seeds or late‐successional species is a useful method to enhance tree seed germination—an essential first step to restore the forests after landslide disturbances, with potential to be extended to other humid tropical and subtropical forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cover image is based on the Research Article I Vegetation regeneration on natural terrain landslides in Hong Kong: Direct seeding of native species as a restoration tool i by Ying Ki Law et al., https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.4492. [Extracted from the article]