One such driver is the accumulation of novel substances such as microplastics, pharmaceuticals and long-lived compounds, which are being found in the environment with increasing regularity.¹⁴,¹⁵,¹⁶ There is uncertainty about the nature and scale of their impacts,¹⁷ but emerging evidence suggests they may affect ecosystem functioning.¹⁸

Climate change, in particular, though often in combination with other factors, is causing shifts in the distributional ranges of many species.¹⁹ The average native plant species is moving around 1.74 kilometres per year — non-native species are moving significantly faster.²⁰ Previously temperate ecosystems are increasingly home to tropical species.²¹As a result, some protected areas face becoming obsolete because they are no longer able to protect the living entities they were designed to protect. Many ecosystems are not changing fast enough to keep up with the changing climate.²²,²³ Furthermore, because species move at different rates, most ecosystems will not simply move but will instead profoundly rearrange themselves. We are witnessing the emergence of unprecedented ecosystems that include unprecedented combinations of species. This is raising potential conflicts between human and non-human rights, and increasing risk to human health from zoonotic diseases such as Ebola and Lyme disease.²⁴,²⁵

Humans are directly contributing to transformations by introducing new species to regions where they did not previously exist, either accidentally or purposefully.²⁶ Researchers are exploring methods for containing such invasions, including green infrastructure design.²⁷ However, these efforts will be complicated by the fact that invasive species can themselves evolve, adapting to their new surroundings.²⁸ Indeed, many groups of organisms are now undergoing rapid evolution in response to anthropogenic changes.²⁹,³⁰ How ecological theory and practice navigate these transitions and novel configurations is facing us with deep dilemmas in terms of ethics and logistics.

³² Environmental DNA (eDNA) can reveal hidden diversity within communities³³ and is becoming increasingly accurate.³⁴ Imaging technologies can identify species, predict physiological processes³⁵ and analyse ecological functions even in complex ecosystems.³⁶ Acoustic monitoring can reveal changes in ecosystems,³⁷ including underwater.³⁸ Chemical sensors can detect volatile organic compounds,³⁹ many of which are used as signals. There is growing scope for remote monitoring,⁴⁰,⁴¹including from space.⁴² On the scale of individual organisms, tracking devices are increasingly small and smart. AI is being embedded in all these tools.

Alongside these technological advances, there is a second growing source of information and knowledge: Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK). While Indigenous groups have often been shut out of research and conservation,⁴³ in more recent decades there have been calls to generate more comprehensive and equitably produced data,⁴⁴ and resulting action.⁴⁵ This more inclusive approach has improved the assessment of endangered-species status⁴⁶ and enabled more effective conservation action.⁴⁷ While combining ILK and normal science can be challenging, conservationists need to build on these early successes and further enrich their work with ILK.⁴⁸

This blizzard of new datasets poses a challenge: how do we integrate so many diverse types of data? Can we build them into a global picture — and is that even a useful thing to do? AI could help us process and understand these enormous datasets, but only if they are sufficiently systematic to be learnable.⁴⁹ However, such projects inevitably raise issues of privacy and data sovereignty.

More broadly, few models consider cross-system and cross-scale connections: ecosystems are profoundly affected by economic, social and political processes such as large-scale displacement of people, global supply chains, governmental subsidies and treaties.⁶⁰,⁶¹ War has rarely been treated in models of global change even though war has significant effects on biodiversity — nature’s contributions to people, food and energy systems.⁶²,⁶³,⁶⁴ Then there is climate overshoot, which will have lasting and widespread impacts.⁶⁵,⁶⁶ Understanding all these processes, recognising what can be quantified and how best to include these aspects in models and their applications,⁶⁷,⁶⁸ is crucial for understanding what could be a better future for people and other life on Earth. There is also a need for models that take into account different philosophical approaches and human values of nature,⁶⁹,⁷⁰ such as envisioning a future of flourishing nature rather than a future of limited decline.⁷¹ Furthermore, understanding the importance of aspects that cannot be quantified and therefore modelled, for example some Indigenous knowledge approaches or relational values, and using other tools to incorporate these futures, is also critical.⁷²,⁷³

Given the primacy of economics in many societies, it is crucial to further integrate ecology with new forms of economic thinking, which may offer a path to greater sustainability, ⁷⁴,⁷⁵,⁷⁶ embracing concepts such as degrowth⁷⁷,⁷⁸,⁷⁹ and reciprocity with non-human life⁸⁰

To date, the most widely deployed modified organisms are genetically modified crops.⁸¹ Despite decades of use, our understanding of their environmental impacts remains limited,⁸² and the public view of them remains cautious or even critical.⁸³

More recently, there have been ongoing efforts to develop genetic techniques for controlling vector-borne diseases⁸⁴ or invasive species.⁸⁵ Many approaches use a gene drive,⁸⁶,⁸⁷,⁸⁸ a technology that ensures a particular version of a gene is inherited and spreads through the population.⁸⁹ This could be used to impair the malaria parasites’ ability to develop and spread,⁹⁰,⁹¹ or to prevent mosquitoes from reproducing.⁹²⁹³,⁹⁴ It could also be used for reducing the populations of invasive rodents in islands.⁹⁵

However, it could be exceedingly difficult to retrieve a gene drive once it has been unleashed. Despite current effort to test and mitigate their risks,⁹⁶,⁹⁷,⁹⁸,⁹⁹,¹⁰⁰,¹⁰¹,¹⁰² the potential impacts are largely unknown and could be widespread and devastating. Ecological assessments contain an intrinsic uncertainty that imposes limits on the reliability of even the most rigorous processes of gene drive impact assessment.¹⁰³

Other, possibly more controllable, approaches are being developed, such as precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT).¹⁰⁴ This scalable system uses CRISPR gene-editing technology to genetically kill females and sterilise males which can be released into the environment at any life stage to emerge as genetically sterile males that will suppress populations. It is currently being tested in the field.¹⁰⁵

Clearly, all of these innovations and potential interventions raise many unanswered ecological, evolutionary, ethical and political questions.¹⁰⁶,¹⁰⁷,¹⁰⁸,¹⁰⁹