Co-ordinating Editor: J€org Ewald

Question: Passive forest restoration is based on the natural recovery of degraded habitats. However, tree recruitment is frequently hampered in deforested lands. Tree seed dispersal is scarce and spatially constrained, confining the potential of forest regeneration to a narrow band surrounding forest remnants. Understand-ing how landscape configuration can favour endozoochorous seed dispersal into deforested lands is thus crucial to recover forest extent and the concomitant eco-system services. Can distance restrictions on seed dispersal be modified as a result of temporal variability of fruit–frugivore systems? Location: Deforested montane pastures surrounding fragments of secondary temperate forest, Cantabrian Range, Spain. Methods: For 2 yr, we evaluated the patterns of fruit production, frugivorous bird movement and tree seed dispersal through the landscape. Seed dispersal in deforested sampling stations was related to their distance to forest cover and the amount of forest cover in their surroundings