Objective The Earth’s ecosystems are facing the twin challenges of climate change and rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss. Global warming has increased both the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. At the same time, as the global population has surpassed eight billion, rapid urbanization has continued to replace large areas of natural habitat with artificial ecosystems, leading to a persistent decline in native urban biodiversity. Conventional approaches to urban greening have mainly focused on visual landscaping and aesthetic improvement. This aesthetic-driven paradigm, which reconstructs vegetation primarily for appearance, has led to highly homogenized urban plantings. Native species are commonly excluded from such practices. As a result, the constructed plant communities often fail to match local biogeographical conditions and are unable to initiate natural successional processes on their own. Consequently, they provide inadequate, low-quality habitat for indigenous fauna such as insects, birds, and small mammals.The frequent use of herbicides and pesticides, combined with intensive understory mowing, has further degraded many artificial green spaces into "green deserts," where vegetation remains but essential animal life is largely absent. Long-term reliance on such high-input, high-intensity, and carbon-intensive maintenance practices conflicts with the goals of sustainable, low-carbon development. This highlights the need to establish an integrated theoretical and technical framework for urban near-natural forests, which should achieve low construction and maintenance costs while supporting high ecological resilience and strong carbon-sequestration capacity. This study aims to contribute scientific grounding and practical guidance for mitigating climate change and reversing biodiversity decline, and to offer a replicable and scalable approach rooted in contemporary Chinese ecological practices.

Methods The study began with a systematic review of the origins, development, and conceptual foundations of the "near-natural" philosophy in ecological science and restoration practice. Building on more than two decades of empirical research, long-term monitoring, and demonstration projects conducted by our interdisciplinary team, the Cosuccession hypothesis was translated from extensive field observations into practical ecological application. Based on these foundations, we propose a coherent framework for developing urban near-natural forests. The framework is structured across five interrelated components: guiding philosophy, foundational principles, theoretical basis, methodological pathways, and technical system.The framework draws on the philosophies of Mountains, waters, forests, farmland, lakes, grasslands and deserts as a community of life, a Community of Life for Man and Nature, and the Three Ecological Perspectives. It highlights a transition from "pseudo-nature and false ecology" toward "near-nature and true ecology. " It focuses on the coordinated restoration and functional enhancement of the five main categories of urban ecological space, including green spaces, forests, wetlands, croplands and garden lands. The near-natural ecological restoration serves as the primary implementation pathway. The establishment of resilient, functionally rich, regionally characteristic Landmark Biological Communities is identified as the long-term restoration objective. Together, these elements form a fully operational, climate-adaptive, and functionally diverse technical system for urban near-natural forests guided by the Cosuccession hypothesis.

Results Long-term field observations show that urban near-natural forests, which are established by simulating the species composition and structural characteristics of zonal climax communities with native species as the primary components, can effectively support natural successional processes. Once succession begins, indigenous fauna such as insects, birds, and small mammals gradually colonize these restored habitats. Dynamic ecological interactions were commonly observed during this process, including population turnover among different biological groups. These findings indicate that native plant communities provide habitat conditions that support the return of indigenous animals. In turn, the ecological roles of these animals promote plant communities toward more complex and stable successional stages. Recognizing these symbiosis-coevolution dynamics broadens the traditional plant-centered understanding of succession. Importantly, this study systematically traces the evolutionary process of urban near-natural restoration, integrating over two decades of empirical research and localized application practices, and proposes the Cosuccession hypothesis for native species. This hypothesis not only provides a theoretical foundation linking classical ecological succession with practical restoration goals but also emphasizes the coordinated co-development of flora and fauna in urban ecosystems, highlighting the functional interdependence of biological communities at multiple scales. Ecological restoration guided by this hypothesis integrates the natural processes of classical succession with the goal-oriented objectives of restoration practice. Two main technical pathways link theory to application: 1) climate-adaptive design, which operates at the ecosystem scale across different vegetation zones, addressing large-scale climatic and environmental gradients, and 2) habitat-adaptive design, which focuses on the local community scale to optimize species interactions and microhabitat conditions at specific urban sites.

Conclusion These pathways guide the establishment of diversified communities, including construction, stewardship and management, and monitoring and evaluation. A key innovation is the development of multifunctional “landmark” biological communities that simultaneously enhance climate-habitat adaptability, maintain high biodiversity, and provide ecosystem services including carbon sequestration, water retention, and aesthetic value. Furthermore, this research refines and expands the theoretical framework of urban near-natural forest restoration, offering a comprehensive paradigm in which climate-adaptive design operates at the ecosystem scale across vegetation zones, and habitat-adaptive design focuses on the local community scale, together supporting multifunctional, climate-resilient, and self-organizing urban ecosystems. The study provides both conceptual and technical innovations, bridging ecological theory and applied urban restoration, and establishes a China-specific approach that can inform global near-natural urban forest practices. By emphasizing functional diversity, resilience, and ecological authenticity, this work contributes a robust scientific and practical foundation for transforming conventional urban green spaces into sustainable, self-regulating and ecologically integrated urban ecosystems.