Comment

Ash forests in North America and Eurasia are rapidly being lost to two invasive alien species: the emerald ash borer and Chalara ash dieback fungus. We argue that better regulatory policy and science-based intervention can help slow losses, and recommend an international consortium to coordinate science-based intervention.

Debate surrounding the dilution effect hypothesis in disease ecology has reached such intensity that it is stymying further research. Yet collaborative progress is important for human health and biodiversity conservation.

Biodiversity underpins the function of ecosystems. Here we discuss how biodiversity–ecosystem function theory could apply to our bodies and buildings, outline practical applications and call for further research.

Evidence overwhelmingly shows structural barriers to women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, and suggests that the onus cannot be on women alone to confront the gender bias in our community. Here, I share my experience as a scientist and a woman who has collected data during more than ten years of scientific training about how best to navigate the academic maze of biases and barriers.

Ensuring an environmentally friendly overhaul of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy will entail payments for environmental objectives, promoting High Nature Value Farmlands, improved flexibility and policy integration.

Globally, flora, fauna and many indigenous cultures have evolved to coexist sustainably with fire. We argue that the key to sustainable contemporary human coexistence with wildfires is a form of biomimicry that draws on the evolutionary adaptations of organisms that survive (and flourish) in the fire regimes in which they reside.

Indigenous knowledge and ecological science have complementary differences that can be fruitfully combined to better understand the past and predict the future of social-ecological systems. Cooperation among scientific and Indigenous perspectives can improve conservation and resource management policies.

Recently publicized killings of environmental defenders are the latest iteration of a long and tragic history of violent conflict over access to land and resources. To bring about effective change, we must first understand the drivers and conditions that lead to violence in the sphere of environmental and land conflict.

The emergence of chronic wasting disease among wild reindeer in Norway triggered the decision to eradicate an entire population of more than 2,000 animals. The cull, now complete, was a tremendously difficult process both politically and practically.

Ambitious targets for the retention — not just formal protection — of nature are urgently needed to conserve biodiversity and to maintain crucial ecosystem services for humanity.

The amount of open data in ecology and evolution is increasing rapidly, yet this resource remains underused. Here, we introduce a new framework and case study for conducting meta-analyses of open datasets, and discuss its benefits and current limitations.

Recent calls for the reintroduction of functionally important animal species are motivated by a desire to restore ecological function, but overlook the ecological roles performed by humans. Here, we consider humans in ecological context, exploring our roles in the maintenance and restoration of ecosystem function.

Regulations designed to prevent global inequalities in the use of genetic resources apply to both commercial and non-commercial research. Conflating the two may have unintended consequences for collaboration between the Global North and biodiverse countries in the Global South, which may promote global injustice rather than mitigate it.

European governments are poised to ban neonicotinoid pesticides. Insights from six years as a senior government advisor have led me to conclude that agricultural reform is urgently needed, beyond cycles of pesticide licensing and withdrawal.

TreeDivNet is the largest network of biodiversity experiments worldwide, but needs to expand. We encourage colleagues to establish new experiments on the relation between tree species diversity and forest ecosystem functioning, and to make use of the platform for collaborative research.

Evidence-based environmental management is being hindered by difficulties in locating, interpreting and synthesizing relevant information among vast scientific outputs. But software developments that allow enhanced collation and sharing of data will help.

Ecological concepts and their acronyms can obstruct understanding of complexity by providing seemingly simple and certain descriptions of the natural world. Their use requires a balanced approach.

Aichi Target 11 has galvanized expansion of the global protected area network, but there is little evidence that this brings real biodiversity gains. We argue that area-based prioritization risks unintended perverse consequences and that the focus of protected area target development should shift from quantity to quality.

Intergenerational rights to a healthy environment are protected by the constitutions of 74% of the world’s nations. These explicit commitments and similar, ancient principles of sovereign public trust are often overlooked but, if enforced, they offer sustainable protection for the biosphere.

Evolutionary medicine is a research frontier whose promise has only partially been realized. Here I discuss the advances that have built its foundation and point to where progress is most needed.