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Such assisted evolution might be achieved through selective breeding, which is already familiar to most people, or through genetic engineering, which many people find strange and sometimes threatening. \n\nAt the extreme, we could go beyond promoting genes that natural selection has already established and design organisms which fill particular niches in an ecosystem. How can we decide whether this or any other intervention would be safe and justified? When we look at an ecosystem, how do we decide if it needs our help; and if it does, how can we understand what the underlying problem is, and then how we might be able to fix it? \n\nThe ecosystems that I spend most time studying are the vast underwater kelp forests off the US West Coast, which are hugely important in building up fish stocks, cleaning up fertiliser run-off and sequestering carbon dioxide. These ecosystem services are estimated to be worth $52 billion a year to the West Coast economy alone,[1](/citation/2025-03-ic-1-1/) and so it is in our interests that these forests thrive.  \n\nWe focus on the sunflower sea star, a large starfish which seems to play a key role in the ecosystems of kelp forests by eating sea urchins, which in turn eat kelp. There is evidence of this animal’s importance from an outbreak of disease which killed nearly all the sunflower sea stars in the southern half of their range between 2013 and 2015: kelp-forest ecosystems collapsed, having already been weakened by a marine heatwave. \n\nSuch incidents are likely to grow more common in the near future, so with colleagues we are working on a breeding programme for sunflower sea stars. As part of that, we want to be sure that the brood stock we use represents the genetic diversity of this species, and in particular we are looking for genes that are involved in resilience to sea-star wasting disease. If we can find such genes, we can breed sea stars that have them and so are more resistant to the disease. \n\nWe could do that through selective breeding using sea stars that are evidently able to survive the disease. Or we could identify the genes that confer this resistance, then single out those sea stars that have these genes to use in our breeding programme, thus speeding up the process. Or we could modify the genes of many sea stars to make them resistant, which would speed things up even more. Which is the correct path?\n\nThese aren’t just decisions for researchers, but for all those involved with the kelp forests. At a minimum, we would need regulatory permission to introduce any kind of bred sea stars into the kelp forests, but the discussions should go much further. \n\nMy lab also studies the marine lake ecosystems of the western Pacific. These unique ecosystems have prospered evolutionarily, having been isolated from the ocean for thousands of years — but their dynamics appear to be shifting. In Palau, for example, we’ve seen changes over the past 25 years associated with warming lake temperatures, where previously dominant, unique, species are now often absent. That is of obvious environmental significance, but it is economically important too: large numbers of tourists pay a $100 fee to visit “Jellyfish Lake”, whose previously millions of golden jellyfish, *Mastigias papua etpisoni*, live nowhere else. These temperature-sensitive animals are at risk as the climate changes; could the lake be geoengineered to keep it cool? It is, relatively speaking, a small, simple  and self-contained ecosystem, so monitoring and managing the environment may be feasible. If amelioration works there, perhaps it can provide principles for a more interventionist form of eco-augmentation.\n\nIn contrast, the kelp-forest ecosystem on the West Coast spans thousands of kilometres. The sunflower sea star has been a big part of our work but it is just one species. We need to understand how all the organisms in these ecosystems interact, and how they vary both between different forests and within individual forests. Our focus is on how this diversity responds to stresses or changes in the environment at a genetic  level, so that we can better understand the ways that species or populations might adapt to the new conditions.\n\nThis is not a new approach, in principle, but what is new is the toolset now available to us — principally those that allow us to sequence the unique genetic codes of individual organisms cheaply, easily and quickly. \n\nThat means we can see how genetics varies between, say, healthy and degraded regions of kelp forest, and find those variants that help the organism survive in different environments. Genomes evolve over generations, and so we are also looking at genetic processes that change much more quickly, including epigenetic responses — chemical changes in DNA that occur during an organism’s life and affect how its genes are expressed. We could also look for genes that are important in, say, signalling or predation. Our ultimate aim is to make tools that can quickly assess the health and interconnectedness of different forests. \n\nOur proposal now is to build up the number of species we have covered. At the moment we are looking at the ecological data on interactions. We will pick species that have known roles in the ecosystem: the predators and the prey, for instance, or the symbionts and the hosts. At the moment we’re targeting approximately 15 species per habitat, but that is a small fraction. There are lots of species out there that we don’t know yet, and many ways in which genetics varies even within the same species. These may be driven by small differences in their environment: their depth in water or exposure to sunlight, for example. Such differences may prove to be significant as those environments change incrementally in coming years. \n\nWe also need a much better understanding of how ecological interactions are linked to genomic adaptations. We might expect species that interact more frequently to co-evolve — that is, they should exhibit shared patterns of genetic variation through time as the environment changes. \n\nThe genetics of creatures that can only live in symbiosis, for example, might be expected to change in unison. Species that have nothing in common would evolve independently. Species that have some key interactions — predators and prey, for example — should be somewhere in between. There’s interest in doing this with sunflower sea stars and sea urchins, for example: putting them in aquaria together and see how they respond, what their biochemical and gene expression is and whether it is subsequently accompanied by epigenetic modification.\n\nWe can look for these relationships between organisms through statistical analysis of their genetic data. That can then be built upon through fieldwork that tracks the rise and fall of wild populations, or the changing presence of different organisms at different locations. Ultimately, we could build model ecosystems which include individual interactions between species. But that requires a commitment to collecting genetic and ecological data in great detail at large scales on an ongoing basis.\n\nPeople once improved bridge construction by, in a manner of speaking, building them and seeing whether they fell down. Then scientists better worked out the physics of bridges. That means engineers can now design more complex and larger bridges and build them, confident that they will stay up. Eco-augmentation is still at the trial-and-error stage. But in 25 years’ time, if we have been able to collect sufficient data, we should be able to model the evolution of ecosystems under climate change and human pressures, and how they could evolve as a result — and how we can help them to recover and thrive.\n\n1. A.M. Eger et al., ‘The value of ecosystem services in global marine kelp forests’, Nature Communications, 14, 1894 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37385-0 "},"titleRich":{"id":"68afef971dec39db691bda13_titleRich","text":""},"subtitleRich":{"id":"68afef971dec39db691bda13_subtitleRich","text":""},"openGraph":{"title":null,"description":{"plain":"Ecosystems around the world are in trouble. In some cases, they might recover if given sufficient time. In others, it seems unlikely that they can do so, at least within an acceptable timeframe. Critical parts of the system may have been severely damaged or lost altogether. 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facing global challenges that are placing people and the planet under stress and in great uncertainty.\nAt the same time, breakthroughs in science and technology are occurring at an unprecedented pace – but the full ramifications of these breakthroughs are not always evident.\nAnticipation, therefore, is key to building the future by fully leveraging the potential of new science and technology advances to improve well-being and promote inclusive development.\nThe Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) Foundation was created in 2019 in Geneva to tackle this issue, as a think tank and do tank.\n"},"image":{"url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/shapeable/image/upload/v1760413449/gesda-platform/site/gesda-radar-website_thumbnail__Screenshot_2025-10-14_at_11.42.59_o2cgxm.png","type":"image/png","thumbnails":{"full":{"url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/shapeable/image/upload/v1760413449/gesda-platform/site/gesda-radar-website_thumbnail__Screenshot_2025-10-14_at_11.42.59_o2cgxm.png"}}}},"termsAndConditions":{"text":""},"privacyPolicy":{"text":"At the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (hereafter referred to as ‘GESDA’), we respect your privacy. We want to ensure that you get the information, content, and experiences that matter most to you. GESDA is committed to protecting the privacy of its stakeholders, communities, and other contacts.\n\n## Scope\n\nThis privacy policy applies to all personal data processed by full-time and part-time employees, volunteers when acting on behalf of GESDA, contractors and partners doing business on behalf of GESDA, as well as all legal entities, all operating locations in all countries, and all business processes conducted by GESDA.\n\n## Information Collected\n\n#### What information do we collect?\n\nGESDA collects the following personal data in line with the use purposes explained in a subsequent section:\n\n  * Your name and contact details\n  * Online profile data/usage\n  * Contact information\n  * Social media profile information\n  * Education and professional information\n  * Registration and participation in GESDA events and activities - Information about service usage\n  * Cookies\n  * Authentication data\n  * Location information\n  * Author and peer review information\n  * Other information you upload or provide to us\n\n#### How do we use your information?\n\nGESDA uses (and, where specified, shares) your personal information for the following purposes:\n\n  * To provide support or other services. GESDA may use your personal information to provide you with support or other services that you have ordered or requested. GESDA may also use your personal information to respond directly to your requests for information, including registrations for webinars, or other specific requests, or pass your contact information to the appropriate GESDA supplier or reseller for further follow-up related to your interests.\n  * To provide information based on your needs and respond to your requests. GESDA may use your personal information to provide you with notices of new product releases and service developments.\n  * To administer products. GESDA may contact you if you make use of (digital) products we offer, to confirm certain information (for example, that you did not experience problems in a download process). We may also use this information to confirm compliance with licensing and other terms of use and may share it with your company/institution.\n  * To assist in your participation in GESDA activities. GESDA will communicate with you, if you are participating in certain GESDA activities such as the GESDA Summit, authoring or reviewing a GESDA article, or GESDA humanitarian activities. GESDA may send you information such as update messages related to those activities (such as but not limited to the event's content, and event logistics)\n  * To update you on relevant GESDA events and opportunities. GESDA may communicate with you regarding relevant GESDA events and opportunities.\n  * To protect GESDA content and services. We may use your information to prevent potentially illegal activities and to enforce our terms and conditions.\n  * To get feedback or input from you. In order to deliver products and services of most interest to our stakeholders, from time to time, we may ask you to provide us input and feedback (for example through surveys).\n\n#### How can you control your information?\n\nYou can control the information we have about you and how we use as follows:\n\n  * If you are a registered guest for the GESDA Annual Summit 2021, any request for review, revise or correction of your personal data can be sent to summit@global.gesda specifying your request.\n\n#### Personal data about minors and children\n\nGESDA does not knowingly collect data from or about children under 16 without the permission of parent(s)/guardian(s). If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 16, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under age 16, please contact us.\n\n#### How will you know if the Privacy Policy is changed?\n\nGESDA may update its Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any material changes you will be notified by means of a notice on our website prior on the date the change becomes effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.\n\n## Technical And Regulatory Information\n\n#### Logging practices\n\nGESDA automatically records the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of visitors. The IP address is a unique number assigned to every computer on the internet. Generally, an IP address changes each time you connect to the internet (it is a \"dynamic\" address). Note, however, that if you have a broadband connection, depending on your individual circumstance, the IP address that we collect may contain information that could be deemed identifiable. This is because, with some broadband connections, your IP address doesn't change (it is \"static\") and could be associated with your personal computer.\n\nAs well as recording the IP addresses of users, GESDA may also keep track of sites that users visited immediately prior to visiting GESDA's website and the search terms they used to find it. We keep track of the pages visited on GESDA's website, the amount of time spent on those pages and the types of searches done on them. Your searches remain confidential and anonymous. GESDA uses this information only for statistical purposes to find out which pages users find most useful and to improve the website.\nGESDA also captures and stores information that you transmit. This may include:\n\n  * Browser/Device type/version\n  * Operating system used\n  * Media Access Control (MAC) address\n  * Date and time of the server request\n  * Volume of data transferred\n\n#### External links behaviour\n\nSome of the links on GESDA's websites link to other sites created and maintained by other public- and/or private-sector organizations. GESDA provides these links solely for your information and convenience. When you transfer to an outside website, you are leaving the GESDA domain, and GESDA's information management policies no longer apply. GESDA encourages you to read the privacy statement of each external website that you visit before you provide any personal data.\n\n#### Cookies and web beacons\n\nCookies and web beacons are electronic placeholders that are placed on your device by websites to track your individual movements on that website over time. GESDA uses both session-based cookies (which last only for the duration of the user's session) and persistent cookies (which remain on your device and provide information about the session you are in and waits for the next time you use that site again).\n\nThese cookies and web beacons provide useful information to GESDA, enabling us to recognize repeat users, facilitate the user's access to and use of our sites, allows us to track usage behavior, and to balance the usage of our websites on all GESDA web servers.\nTracking cookies, third-party cookies, and other technologies such as web beacons may be used to process additional information, enable non-core functionalities on the GESDA website and enable third-party functions (such as a social media \"share\" link). We may also include web beacons and other similar technology in promotional email messages to determine whether the messages have been opened.\n\n#### Do Not Track (DNT)\n\nThe online advertising industry has self-regulatory initiatives designed to provide consumers a choice in the types of ads they may see online and to conveniently opt-out from online behavioral ads served by some or all of the companies participating in these programs. Our websites do not respond to DNT consumer browser settings.\n\n#### Responses to legal requests\n\nGESDA reserves the right to share your information to respond to duly authorized information requests of governmental authorities or where required by law.\n\n#### Your data rights\n\nGESDA complies with all applicable data privacy laws and regulations including, but not limited to, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Under these laws and regulations, you may have certain rights to your data. Should you wish to exercise any of these rights, please send an email request to info@gesda.global with \"Data Privacy Request'' in the subject line and in the email please identify the specific privacy right you request assistance with. Please note additional information may be requested prior to fulfilling a request and that GESDA reserves the right to charge a fee, where permitted, to cover the cost of certain requests.\n\n#### How do I contact you if there is an issue?\nIf you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or about the use of your personal information, please feel free to contact us by email at info@gesda.global\n\n#### Contact Information\nGeneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) c/o Fondation Campus Biotech\nChemin des Mines 9\n1202 Geneva\n+41 58 201 02 61\ninfo@gesda.global\n"},"welcomeUrl":"https://radar.gesda.global/app/welcome","welcomeTitle":"Welcome to GESDA and thanks for joining us! 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