James Stefan Borrell

Societal Impact Statement: As of 2026, fewer than 23% of vascular plants have International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List assessments, despite accelerating threats to biodiversity. Predictive models of extinction risk complement assessments and help prioritize conservation action but face a trade‐off between data resolution and species coverage. Using Ethiopian endemic flowering plants, we found that medium‐scale spatial data—similar to provinces or counties—strike a balance between resolution and coverage, improving predictive performance. Because these data can be obtained from multiple sources, including textual records, our approach can be implemented in future prediction models, helping experts direct limited resources toward species most at risk. Summary: Extinction risk predictions complement conservation assessments but are limited by available data, creating a trade‐off between resolution and taxonomic completeness. Fine‐scale predictors offer greater resolution but exclude data‐limited species, whereas coarse‐scale predictors maximize species coverage but lack resolution—especially at smaller scales. Recent comprehensive extinction risk assessment of Ethiopia's endemic angiosperms provides an opportunity to investigate the robustness of extinction risk predictions and identify patterns or systematic biases at a national scale. Here, we interrogate the performance of coarse‐scale predictions from Bachman et al. (2024) for Ethiopian endemics, using patterns in misclassifications to identify additional (protected area) and refined (geographic range size and human footprint) predictors that could improve future models. We found that number of floristic regions (similar in scale to provinces) significantly outperformed point‐based range size metrics (extent of occurrence and area of occupancy), and that recalculating human footprint at floristic region‐scale improved predictive performance. Protected area coverage did not improve model performance. While coordinates can be impossible to pinpoint for many records, administrative units can be obtained from textual data, unlocking more possibilities for georeferencing. By leveraging medium‐scale predictors, our approach balances resolution and taxonomic completeness, offering a scalable path to substantially improve global extinction risk predictions.

Fire is a planetary-scale governance challenge. Across fire-prone landscapes of the Global South, managing fire to support biodiversity, livelihoods and climate resilience requires approaches and policy to move beyond treating fire as a uniform threat, an illegal act or a poverty-driven choice. Fire is embedded in social-ecological systems, and conflict reflects misalignment among policy, ecological dynamics and social realities. In this Perspective, Madagascar provides a diagnostic lens on the challenges associated with fire. Fire-sensitive forests, fire-adapted open ecosystems, rural dependence on burning, colonial fire-control legacies, forest-centred conservation and fragmented mandates co-exist within landscapes, exposing the limits of suppression-first governance across the Global South. We combine our diagnosis with examination of fire governance from fire-prone countries and transdisciplinary practitioner knowledge to propose ten principles for aligning fire policy with social-ecological realities. These principles offer a pathway beyond blanket suppression towards legitimate, adaptive and context-specific fire governance across sectors, institutions and scales.

Achieving global biodiversity targets, such as the commitment to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030, depends on the ability of individual countries to translate targets into reality. While there has long been recognition that protected areas can bring costs as well as benefits, the implications of this for delivery of global targets have not been fully explored. We focus on Ethiopia, a country supporting globally important biodiversity but facing substantial poverty challenges. We characterize the extent and representativeness of Ethiopia’s protected area network, demonstrating that a threefold expansion—particularly into ecoregions with higher opportunity cost—would be required to meet the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Target 3. Using a quasi-experimental approach (accounting for known confounders and exploring sensitivity to potential unobserved confounders), we show that the existing protected area network has reduced forest loss and agricultural expansion, and helped to maintain grasslands. Yet, this has brought social wellbeing costs equivalent to 3.9 million fewer household-months of adequate food. Surveys show that national conservation stakeholders recognize these challenges and prioritize improving effectiveness of the existing network over expansion. Our findings highlight that trade-offs between environmental and social outcomes are not simply challenges to be managed, but are central to whether global biodiversity commitments can be delivered.

Aim: Understanding how global biogeographical and evolutionary processes have shaped continental scale patterns of plant genetic diversity is increasingly tractable, given the proliferation of population genetic data. Predominant theories are the geographical central‐marginal hypothesis (CMH), ecological CMH and historical CMH which predict decreasing genetic diversity from range centres to margins, from suitable to marginal environments, and from refugia to newly colonised areas, respectively. In addition, the latitudinal gradient (LG) and longitudinal gradient (LoG) hypotheses predict a decrease of within‐population genetic diversity along dispersal routes across species ranges. Here we test these hypotheses across North America (NA), Europe (EU), and East Asia (EA), which experienced contrasting patterns of post‐glacial landscape fragmentation. Location: North America, Europe and East Asia. Time Period: The last glacial maximum to present. Major Taxa Studied: Plants. Methods: We collated data from 8333 populations, representing 435 plant species and calculated distances from populations to the range margin, climatic niche margin and refugia, latitude and longitude. We applied Bayesian phylogenetic mixed‐effects models to assess the relationship between these variables and genetic diversity. All possible combinations of the five variables were constructed, yielding 31 candidate models, and the best‐supported model was identified through model comparison. Results: We found that the geographical CMH, ecological CMH, historical CMH, LG and LoG have shaped patterns of genetic diversity across the Northern Hemisphere, but varied substantially by region and between woody and herbaceous species. Specifically, the geographical CMH has mainly shaped genetic diversity of herbaceous species in the EU and EA whereas the ecological CMH mainly impacted that of woody species in NA. The historical CMH has limited impacts on patterns of genetic diversity in EA. Main Conclusions: Our analyses illustrate contrasting drivers of spatial genetic diversity across continents, reflecting heterogeneous impacts of historical glaciation interacting with life history traits. Our results underscore the value of geographical, historical and ecological variables as proxies for within population diversity, enabling identification of populations or regions that could be prioritised for conservation in previously glaciated Northern hemisphere.

Human activity is transforming the shape, size, and resilience of Earth’s biosphere, degrading and augmenting Holocene baseline conditions at various scales, and replacing the wild biosphere with an anthropogenically modified one. We evaluate episodes of biosphere change throughout Earth history and compare them with contemporary and near-future anthropogenic changes, developing the concept of biosphere disruptors – agents that force global-scale macroevolutionary change. Transient disruptors are short-lived agents (mean 8.0×10 ⁵ years), including massive volcanism and asteroid impacts. Persistent disruptors , including atmospheric and ocean oxygenation and land plant evolution, remain in the Earth System over long timescales (mean 1.6×10 ⁸ years). In the geological record, transient disruptors are associated with temporary but sometimes massive biosphere degradation, whereas persistent disruptors are associated with sustained biosphere enhancement. Most anthropogenic biosphere impacts resemble those of past transient disruptors , globally degrading wild biomass and biodiversity. Humanity is driving the second highest rate of biosphere degradation in Earth history after the Cretaceous-Palaeogene bolide impact. However, humanity is the first disrupting agent capable of reflecting on and potentially transforming its impact on planetary habitability. If we can achieve this, humanity could drive the greatest rate of increase in planetary habitability in Earth history on centennial to millennial timescales.

Societal Impact Statement: Promoting agrobiodiversity is a promising strategy for mitigating the negative effects of climate change on global food security. We highlight the central role evolutionary processes play in harnessing the potential of local crops by integrating genomics, archaeology, ethnobotany and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). Our aim is to empower Indigenous peoples and local communities as key actors in agrobiodiversity and crop innovations, fostering ethical and active collaborations. Local contributions to diversifying the global food system will enhance climate resilience and ensure that the benefits of agricultural innovation are shared more broadly and justly across peoples. Summary: Strengthening diverse agricultural systems can mitigate the effects of accelerated climate change on crop production. Unlocking local crops' potential requires understanding their origins, domestication, fundamental attributes and uses. Here, we review the role of genomics, archaeology and ethnobotany that increased our understanding of crop evolution. We highlight biases in data availability towards globally commercial crops and chart pathways to develop baseline knowledge for local crops. We propose integrating these fields with traditional knowledge to illuminate how cultivation and uses have shaped, and will continue to shape, local crops and promote ethical collaborations. The lessons learnt from the past can help us chart the future of sustainable and climate‐resilient agriculture. Supported with evidence from recent research and traditional knowledge, we propose to orient seed conservation, breeding and accelerated domestication around Indigenous peoples and local communities.

A defining feature of humanity through the Holocene has been our inexorable expansion of agriculture. This increased the supply of provisioning services from our environment, enabling dramatic population expansion and improved living standards, but at great cost to biodiversity and carbon cycling. Several lines of evidence now indicate that global agricultural extent has peaked and is declining. This paper synthesizes evidence for a new phase of human agriculture, focusing two emerging trends: agricultural intensification and the abandonment of spared former agricultural land. Together these enable diverse opportunities for restoration encompassing biodiversity gain and carbon sequestration with the potential to generate a global signal unprecedented in the Holocene, and distinct from the near-exponential agricultural expansion of the Anthropocene era to date. To realize these benefits this paper characterizes the opportunities of retreat from marginal agricultural lands, landscapes rich in biodiversity or carbon, systems with high potential for recovery or areas with enabling socio-economic conditions. While global conservation efforts have struggled to measurably bend the curve of biodiversity loss, innovations in agriculture have convincingly succeeded in bending the curve of agricultural expansion. As the dominant driver of biodiversity loss, progress towards the Global Biodiversity Framework goals will depend as much, if not more, on our management of global agriculture as it will on traditional biodiversity conservation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The biosphere in the Anthropocene’.

Future climate trends are predicted to cause a dramatic shift in the geographic distribution of global agriculture. Mapping the distance to future analogues provides a crucial measure of adaptation potential, and reveals steep slope agriculture, regions with small field sizes, and ancient centres of crop domestication have more proximal climate analogues. Drawing parallels from wild biodiversity conservation, these landscapes could play a critical role as climate refugia for agrobiodiversity.

The United Kingdom aims to dramatically accelerate the establishment of new woodlands by 2050, yet the impact of different afforestation strategies on landscape genetic diversity and resilience remains unclear. This study integrates environmental data, whole‐genome sequencing and phenotypic assessments to compare bioclimatic envelopes, genetic diversity and plant health indicators in naturally colonised versus planted populations of pedunculate oak and silver birch. We found that registered seed stands significantly under‐represent the wild bioclimatic envelopes of both species, as well as those of 21 out of 39 UK native species assessed, potentially limiting adaptive diversity in planted populations. Yet, genetic diversity metrics (π, H_O and A_R) based on genome‐wide markers in planted populations were comparable to naturally colonised woodlands. Planted populations exhibited higher within‐group coancestry and moderate genetic homogenisation among sites, possibly reducing adaptive differentiation. Naturally colonised populations showed higher inbreeding coefficients (F_ROH) in both species, potentially due to fragmentation of source populations. Genotype–environment associations based on redundancy analysis revealed divergent selection at functionally relevant loci, indicating distinct selective pressures in commercial tree production versus natural colonisation. Health indicators revealed reduced browsing in planted trees, and differences in mildew and leaf‐spot incidence, suggesting potential selection divergence between afforestation strategies. These findings support a role for both afforestation strategies in enhancing the resilience of future woodlands while highlighting pathway‐specific risks of introducing unintended impacts on forest diversity.

Achieving global biodiversity targets depends on the ability of individual countries to translate targets into reality on the ground. In 2022, 196 parties committed to conserving 30% of the planet by 2030, yet questions remain over whether existing protected areas are effective at conserving biodiversity, and furthermore whether conservation successes impact the wellbeing of local communities. We focus on Ethiopia, a country supporting globally important and endemic biodiversity but facing substantial poverty and food insecurity challenges. We characterise the extent and representativeness of Ethiopia’s existing protected area network, illustrating a three-fold expansion would be required to meet the global target, potentially impacting millions of people. Using a quasi-experimental approach (accounting for known confounders and exploring sensitivity of results to potential unobserved confounders), we demonstrate that the existing protected area network has delivered environmental benefits, with strict protected areas associated with 25% less forest loss and 44% less agricultural expansion compared to statistically matched controls. This is likely to provide national-scale benefits through ecosystem service provision, however, local communities neighbouring protected areas were exposed to significantly worse food security outcomes, equivalent to 3.9 million fewer household-months of adequate food. Surveys with conservation stakeholders show national recognition of these challenges: they prioritise improving effectiveness and governance of the existing network rather than expansion. Our findings highlight the importance of national context, and the risk of prioritising global area-based targets without addressing local social impacts.