Richard D. Gregory

Businesses are increasingly encouraged to disclose their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. A common component of sustainability reporting is screening operational sites for ecologically sensitivity to identify locations for further evaluation and action. However, with 600+ biodiversity metrics available, selecting and interpreting appropriate metrics remains challenging for business. We developed a simple screening framework informed by the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures guidance, grouping eleven widely used global biodiversity metrics into four complementary [&prime]baskets[&prime], representing different aspects of biodiversity. We created hypothetical but realistic mining, onshore wind energy and agricultural companies, to assess how metric choice, buffer size, scoring approach and sensitivity thresholds influence screening outcomes. Our basket framework consistently identified similar high-priority sites across metric combinations, but site rankings varied with methodological choices. We recommend clearer guidance on metric selection and application, alongside greater transparency from business regarding assumptions, methods and limitations when screening sites for ecological sensitivity.

Testing conservation management interventions helps to diagnose causes of biodiversity loss and identify practical solutions, so helping to build a robust evidence base for good conservation decision‐making. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has multi‐decadal experience of collaboration between scientists and practitioners to inform conservation. This is based on a problem‐solving framework to identify, test and adaptively improve interventions for species and ecosystem recovery, using RSPB's nature reserves, landscape‐scale conservation and agri‐environment interventions as platforms. Here, we draw upon our experience of experimental tests and related counterfactual study designs, addressing conservation management problems at multiple scales, to consider the benefits and challenges involved in deploying these approaches and some of the insights gained. Outcomes with tangible conservation impact required enduring trust and partnership between scientists, conservation practitioners and funders, both within and between organisations. Challenges have most often arisen when it is difficult to introduce and maintain experimental designs in the face of wider land management priorities and pressures, and when biological understanding of what works has not been matched by social and economic understanding of what measures will be practicable and attractive for those responsible for implementation. Synthesis and applications . Tests of conservation interventions, and especially long‐term experiments, are most likely to succeed when there is a broad partnership commitment to evidence‐based approaches amongst practitioners and funders, as well as scientists. A track record of implementing such studies has undoubtedly helped to build organisational capability in evidence‐based conservation in RSPB but more remains to be done to fully embed a culture of evidence‐based planning, decision‐making and conservation action. Nonetheless, our examples suggest that effort invested in building evidence‐based capability in conservation organisations will be repaid because it acts to optimise conservation impact. It also builds the knowledge and confidence of scientists and practitioners to act as honest brokers and advocates at the interface between science, practice and policy to drive conservation impact at a time of unprecedented environmental challenge.

Despite advances in theory and experiments, how biodiversity influences the structure and functioning of natural ecosystems remains debated. By applying new theory to data on 84,695 plant, animal, and protist assemblages, we show that the general positive effect of species richness on stocks of biomass, as well as much of the variation in the strength and sign of this effect, is predicted by a fundamental macroecological quantity: the scaling of species abundance with body mass. Standing biomass increases with richness when large-bodied species are numerically rare but is independent of richness when species size and abundance are uncoupled. These results suggest a new fundamental law in the structure of ecological communities and show that the impacts of changes in species richness on biomass are predictable.

Anthropogenic climate change is projected to become a major driver of biodiversity loss, destabilizing the ecosystems on which human society depends. As the planet rapidly warms, the disruption of ecological interactions among populations, species and their environment, will likely drive positive feedback loops, accelerating the pace and magnitude of biodiversity losses. We propose that, even without invoking such amplifying feedback, biodiversity loss should increase nonlinearly with warming because of the non-uniform distribution of biodiversity. Whether these non-uniformities are the uneven distribution of populations across a species’ thermal niche, or the uneven distribution of thermal niche limits among species within an ecological community, we show that in both cases, the resulting clustering in population warming tolerances drives nonlinear increases in the risk to biodiversity. We discuss how fundamental constraints on species’ physiologies and geographical distributions give rise to clustered warming tolerances, and how population responses to changing climates could variously temper, delay or intensify nonlinear dynamics. We argue that nonlinear increases in risks to biodiversity should be the null expectation under warming, and highlight the empirical research needed to understand the causes, commonness and consequences of clustered warming tolerances to better predict where, when and why nonlinear biodiversity losses will occur. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue ‘Bending the curve towards nature recovery: building on Georgina Mace’s legacy for a biodiverse future’.

Current rates of habitat and biodiversity loss, and the threat they pose to ecological and economic productivity, would be considered a global emergency even if they were not occurring during a period of rapid anthropogenic climate change. Diversity at all levels of biological organization, both within and among species, and across genomes and communities, is critical for the resilience of the world’s ecosystems in the face of such change. However, it remains an urgent scientific challenge to understand how biodiversity underpins these ecological outputs, how patterns of biodiversity are being affected by current threats, and how and where such biodiversity contributes most directly to human economies, well-being and social justice. In addition, even with such scientific understanding, there is a pressing need for societies to incorporate biodiversity protection into their economies and governance, and to stop subsidizing the loss of humanity’s future prosperity for short-term private benefit. We highlight key issues and ways forward in these areas, inspired by the research and career of Dame Georgina Mace FRS, and by our discussions during the Royal Society meeting of June 2023. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue ‘Bending the curve towards nature recovery: building on Georgina Mace's legacy for a biodiverse future’.

We live at a time of rapid and accelerating biodiversity loss and climate change that pose an existential risk to the environment, humanity, and social justice and stability. Governmental responses are seen by many citizens, including scientists, as inadequate, leading to an increase in civil protests and activism by those calling for urgent action to effect change. Here we consider the role(s) of scientists in responding to those challenges and engaging with policy given that when a scientist moves into political advocacy, reflecting their values and preferences, their objectivity and the value of scientific opinion may be seen as compromised. We then consider whether institutional setting and career stage may affect decisions to engage with policy or activism. Against this backcloth, we ask whether it is sufficient for scientists to act as impartial ‘brokers’ in societal decisions, arguing they should consider acting as ‘ Honest Advocates ’ in policy formation in some circumstances. Such advocacy can contribute to decision-making in a purposeful, well-informed manner, doing societal good without damaging the reputation of science. We encourage scientists to each reflect on their multiple roles in addressing the environmental challenges of our time.

Biodiversity faces unprecedented threats from rapid global change¹. Signals of biodiversity change come from time-series abundance datasets for thousands of species over large geographic and temporal scales. Analyses of these biodiversity datasets have pointed to varied trends in abundance, including increases and decreases. However, these analyses have not fully accounted for spatial, temporal and phylogenetic structures in the data. Here, using a new statistical framework, we show across ten high-profile biodiversity datasets^2–11 that increases and decreases under existing approaches vanish once spatial, temporal and phylogenetic structures are accounted for. This is a consequence of existing approaches severely underestimating trend uncertainty and sometimes misestimating the trend direction. Under our revised average abundance trends that appropriately recognize uncertainty, we failed to observe a single increasing or decreasing trend at 95% credible intervals in our ten datasets. This emphasizes how little is known about biodiversity change across vast spatial and taxonomic scales. Despite this uncertainty at vast scales, we reveal improved local-scale prediction accuracy by accounting for spatial, temporal and phylogenetic structures. Improved prediction offers hope of estimating biodiversity change at policy-relevant scales, guiding adaptive conservation responses.

Globally, vertebrate abundance has declined, and species’ extinction rates have increased, at unprecedented rates over recent decades 1,2. In response, targeted species interventions, such as conservation breeding programmes, legislative measures or species-specific habitat management, have been used to help address population declines and reduce and reverse the loss of biodiversity 3,4. Until now, assessments of conservation actions have focused on the extent to which they reduce extinction risk or focus on the impact of protected areas 4–9. Here, we extend our knowledge of conservation efficacy by quantifying the impact of targeted conservation actions on vertebrate abundance, analyzing data from 26,904 vertebrate populations across 4,629 species worldwide. Using a counterfactual approach to represent population trends in the absence of conservation, we show that targeted actions have delivered substantial positive effects on the abundance of recipient vertebrate populations worldwide. Positive trends were especially observed in vertebrate populations subject to species or habitat management. Our results provide compelling evidence that, with sufficient and sustained resourcing and commitment, successful implementation of Target 4 of the recently adopted Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework can readily help reverse global biodiversity loss and put nature on a path to recovery.