Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment最新文献

{"title":"Toward a unified understanding of people’s aversion to nature: biophobia","authors":"Johan Kjellberg Jensen,&nbsp;Anna S Persson,&nbsp;Masashi Soga","doi":"10.1002/fee.70019","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fee.70019","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Human–nature relationships are often framed positively, but research rarely addresses biophobia, the aversion to nature. However, negative relationships with nature are likely to become more widespread following societal and environmental changes, with serious implications for public health and conservation efforts. Here, we performed a systematic review of 196 studies on biophobia, revealing a fragmentation of knowledge across disciplines, including environmental sciences, psychology, and social sciences. To unify this research, we introduce a cohesive framework summarizing the drivers and consequences of, as well as treatments for, biophobia. Based on the current body of evidence, understanding changes in human–nature dynamics will require enhanced interdisciplinary collaboration, greater attention to cultural and regional differences, and longitudinal studies. In addition, we call for studies of biophobia that extend beyond animal species typically linked to fear or disgust. Broadening the scope of such research will lead to greater appreciation of the full range of human–nature interactions—from affinity to aversion—and ultimately improve conservation strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.70019","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146154610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The role of AI in ecology’s computational carbon footprint","authors":"Kari E Norman,&nbsp;Carl Boettiger,&nbsp;Timothée Poisot,&nbsp;Gavin M Jones","doi":"10.1002/fee.70021","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fee.70021","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Ecologists increasingly recognize that novel computational approaches are critical for effectively addressing the ongoing climate and biodiversity crises. Some of the century’s most substantive methodological developments are in artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI (GenAI) as well as classical AI and machine learning (ML) approaches, which collectively have spurred advances across all fields of science. In ecology, AI has already been leveraged for diverse applications, ranging from large-scale image recognition for monitoring to conservation decision-making in complex systems. Recently, multiple calls for its application to address the biodiversity crisis (e.g., Pollock &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. &lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;) outline past successes and avenues for its continued adoption.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Academic conversations about the potential power of AI for biodiversity science have happened concurrently with, but largely independent from, an increasing popular awareness of the skyrocketing carbon emissions of GenAI tools. Data centers underpinning corporate GenAI application are one of the fastest growing consumers of electricity, with use on track to double by 2030 and current rates already accounting for 1.5% of global electricity consumption (Chen &lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;). The environmental impacts of GenAI also extend beyond electricity consumption. For example, training for only one model—Microsoft’s GPT-3 (sensu ChatGPT)—necessitated consumption of approximately 5.4 million liters of freshwater in the US alone; moreover, training-related water consumption was regionally biased both domestically and internationally, raising serious social-justice concerns (Li &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. &lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;). Generally, an increased emphasis on resource-heavy computational approaches may further exacerbate differences in resource accessibility between the Global North and South, leading to “AI colonialism”. Ecologists, who are committed to biodiversity protection, climate justice, and global equity, therefore feel a growing unease that the continued adoption of AI writ large could undermine the goals of their field. Although our primary focus here is on AI’s carbon footprint, we acknowledge many other ethical issues involved in AI use, including governance of algorithms, violations of privacy and intellectual property rights, and a lack of social responsibility surrounding AI outputs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the discussion of AI use in ecology, one of the central challenges is the ongoing conflation of GenAI with the entire field of AI. Colloquially, the term “AI” is increasingly perceived as exclusively synonymous with GenAI approaches that create text (e.g., ChatGPT), images (e.g., Stable Diffusion), or video (e.g., SORA). However, GenAI is only a single branch of AI that is arguably both the most energy-consumptive and the least relevant to ecology. The stigma attached to the ethical implications of adopting these large corporate models therefore runs the risk of painting with too br","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.70021","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146155132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Overcoming barriers that limit the impact of ecological research","authors":"Carlos Cano-Barbacil,&nbsp;James F Cahill,&nbsp;Helen M Regan,&nbsp;Talya D Hackett,&nbsp;Jacob N Barney,&nbsp;Isabel Donoso,&nbsp;Franz Essl,&nbsp;Emili García-Berthou,&nbsp;Tina Heger,&nbsp;Lotte Korell,&nbsp;Ingolf Kühn,&nbsp;Demetra Rakosy,&nbsp;Kristiina Visakorpi,&nbsp;Núria Roura-Pascual","doi":"10.1002/fee.70016","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fee.70016","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Ecology and conservation researchers have diverse goals that often include both personal career aspirations and desires to enhance the well-being of the natural world and its inhabitants. Perception of ecological research by ecologists typically involves a triad—linking goals, research, and impact. Yet the realities of scientific practice are substantially more complicated due to numerous constraints that limit the ability of researchers to conduct ecological research and to have a genuine impact. Many of these barriers can be mitigated, leading to more effective contributions to society and biodiversity conservation. Here, we outline frequently encountered constraints in ecological research institutions and, by drawing upon many practices used internationally, we identify feasible mitigations and highlight examples of negative consequences that can occur in the absence of effective mitigation strategies. Finally, we propose changes to aspects of the culture and reward systems that would allow ecological research as a discipline to more effectively achieve societal, environmental, and personal goals.</p>","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.70016","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146176501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Managing public lands requires a new kind of leader","authors":"Matthew D Hurteau,&nbsp;Scott L Stephens","doi":"10.1002/fee.70018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.70018","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Our ecosystems are facing unprecedented rates of change from climate and climate-driven disturbances and, at least for public lands in the western US, the administrative systems we have created to manage them cannot keep pace with the changes. The Garnet Fire began on August 24, 2025, in the southern Sierra Nevada of California. On August 31 it entered the Teakettle Experimental Forest and burned through much of the forest over the next 24 hours. Nearly 30 years of experimental work has been conducted at Teakettle, including most recently a planned 3,200-acre (~1,295-hectare) prescribed burn to try to understand how reintroducing fire into this ecosystem, which had been impacted by insect pests, heat, and drought, would alter ecosystem carbon dynamics. Unfortunately, that prescribed burn did not occur prior to the Garnet Fire because we have created land management institutions that are risk averse.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Risk is generically defined as the product of the probability an event occurs and the consequence of its impact. As a species, we appear to be poorly equipped for detecting changes in the probability of various events occurring as a function of changing climatic conditions. This holds for how many land management agencies respond to changing conditions. Increasingly, tools such as the resist–accept–direct framework are being considered in a land management context. However, there are many administrative impediments to accepting and directing change and, especially at system boundaries, resistance is untenable. We believe that a contributing factor is that leaders within land management agencies are discouraged from strategic risk taking. One example is that of fire management where intentionally lighting a prescribed fire has substantial downside potential because of the impacts when the inevitable escape occurs. Whereas, waiting for a wildfire to start and then responding with full suppression carries no risk in terms of liability or negative perception because the land manager is not considered responsible for the consequences of the fire, even for the approximately 2% of ignitions that burn most of the land area in the western US. How then do we shift our relationship with risk such that strategic proactive management that has downside potential is rewarded?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the case of wildfire, we believe part of the answer lies in tying the consequences of unintentional wildfire outcomes to prior management decision making. For example, when the consequences of a wildfire include loss of buildings or major watershed-scale impacts, we need to ask two questions—&lt;i&gt;what a priori management could have altered the severity of the consequences&lt;/i&gt;, followed by &lt;i&gt;why was that management not implemented in the past decade?&lt;/i&gt; If the answer to the first question is that a management activity could have moderated the effects of the wildfire and the answer to the second question is anything other than “insufficient funding”, we need to require that mana","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"23 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.70018","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145625614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Managing nutritional landscapes as the next frontier in forest ecology and conservation","authors":"Kara N Youngentob,&nbsp;Annika M Felton,&nbsp;David B Lindenmayer,&nbsp;Karen J Marsh","doi":"10.1002/fee.70015","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fee.70015","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Sizable efforts and international collaborations are underway to restore natural landscape connectivity and establish green infrastructure. At the same time, there is evidence globally of how disturbance-related changes in tree composition from human activities such as reforestation, logging, fire management, and land clearing are impacting nutritional landscapes, altering ecosystem functioning, and influencing the distribution and abundance of browsers. In disturbance and restoration scenarios, the underlying chemical ecology that influences the function of these forests as food for folivores is often overlooked in management actions. This oversight can result in landscapes that fall short in their ability to support viable populations of browsers and other species that depend on them. We must improve our understanding and awareness of how plant composition affects habitat nutritional quality so that this knowledge can be applied to landscape management and restoration.</p>","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146162670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Disentangling the potential of protected areas to promote sustainable development","authors":"Aline Gaglia Alves,&nbsp;Caroline Vital da Solidade,&nbsp;Helena Alves Prado,&nbsp;Aliny PF Pires","doi":"10.1002/fee.70017","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fee.70017","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) are crucial to sustainable development, yet their contributions to environmental, social, and economic dimensions remain unclear. We investigated the role of PAs and OECMs in advancing the sustainable development agenda by summarizing 400 effect-size values and measuring their impact on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our meta-analysis reveals that, while PAs generally have the potential to enhance sustainable development indicators, certain negative outcomes also emerge, highlighting the need for context-specific analysis and a keen understanding of inherent trade-offs. Although PAs typically support environmental goals, such as SDGs 14 and 15, they often struggle to balance social and economic objectives. We emphasize the importance of integrated assessments that incorporate diverse and better indicators, context-specific factors, and the perspectives of multiple stakeholders. This approach is vital for maximizing the contributions of PAs to sustainable development, particularly in terms of advancing various dimensions of human well-being.</p>","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.70017","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146176373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatial and taxonomic coverage of international migratory bird agreements","authors":"Marina Corella Tor,&nbsp;Tatsuya Amano,&nbsp;Richard A Fuller","doi":"10.1002/fee.70010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.70010","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Successful conservation of migratory birds relies on coordinated management across international borders. Here, we determined the geographic and taxonomic coverage of international agreements aimed at protecting migratory birds. We identified 49 international migratory bird agreements spanning 187 countries and covering 1,677 (86%) of the world’s 1,958 migratory bird species. Fewer such agreements were located in middle-income countries characterized by less effective governance, small size, and few bordering countries. Threatened species were listed in fewer agreements than non-threatened species. Waterbird species tended to be listed individually by species name, while non-waterbird species tended to be covered implicitly through the listing of higher taxonomic ranks such as Families or Orders. Of the migratory bird species, only 28% had all their range countries participating in at least one agreement, while 14% had none. With large geographic gaps remaining, much work needs to be done to expand the global network of migratory bird agreements.</p>","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"23 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.70010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145625769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Six elements of effective public engagement with science","authors":"Sarah Garlick,&nbsp;John C Besley,&nbsp;Karen Peterman,&nbsp;Allison Black-Maier,&nbsp;Martha R Downs,&nbsp;Emily Ortiz Franco,&nbsp;Peter M Groffman,&nbsp;Anthea Lavallee,&nbsp;Kari O’Connell,&nbsp;Martin Storksdieck,&nbsp;Pamela H Templer","doi":"10.1002/fee.70014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.70014","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The value of scientists engaging with community members and other public audiences is widely recognized, and there is a growing literature devoted to the theory and practice of public engagement with science. However, as a group of professionals concerned with how public engagement is understood and practiced in the fields of ecology and environmental science, we see a need for accessible guidance for scientists who want to engage effectively, and for scientific leaders who want to support successful public engagement programs in their institutions. Here, we highlight six attributes of successful public engagement efforts led by scientists and scientific institutions: (1) strategic, (2) cumulative, (3) reciprocal, (4) reflexive, (5) equitable, and (6) evidence-based. By designing and developing practices that incorporate these attributes, scientists and scientific organizations will be better poised to build two-way linkages with communities that, over time, support science-informed decision-making in society and societally informed decision-making in science.</p>","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"23 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.70014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145625737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Measuring what matters in the era of big data","authors":"Easton R White","doi":"10.1002/fee.70013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.70013","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Over the past few decades, we’ve witnessed an explosion in the amount of data available to ecologists. We can now measure the greenness of the planet from satellites; track the movements of individual organisms across the globe; and obtain real-time, high-frequency information from sensor networks distributed across land, air, and aquatic systems. But is the current interest in big data distracting us from measuring what truly matters?</p><p>Clearly, so much ecological research involves careful experimental design and considerations of statistical power. But not every hypothesis can be tested with experiments. Here, I am more focused on observational studies with large, often publicly available, datasets. Much of my own research has concentrated on this type of work. Monitoring for the sake of monitoring is important as it can lead to surprising results or new questions we never envisioned. At the same time, I believe that, at both individual and institutional levels, we need to be thoughtful about how we design new monitoring programs or use data from existing programs.</p><p>In some cases, the right variables often prove difficult to measure, while the wrong ones remain within easy reach. For example, imagine you are studying what may be driving invertebrate population dynamics in a temperate estuary. Temperature loggers cost little to deploy, and temperature data may already be available from existing monitoring programs. Each logger can collect millions of datapoints over a short time window, even if there is little variation over time. In addition, we may have equal rationale to consider other variables, such as dissolved oxygen or pH, which are harder and costlier to monitor. The sheer volume of temperature data and relative ease in its collection can create the illusion of importance, but convenience is not the same as relevance. What’s more, when our response variables and predictors are constrained by what data are available, the scope of questions we can ask is also limited.</p><p>The same dynamic plays out with new technologies—from eDNA to acoustic recorders to GPS tags—that generate reams of new data. These tools expand what we can measure, but they don’t tell us what we <i>should</i> measure. Too often, our technological tunnel vision drives the questions we ask, drawing attention away from the data that may be harder to collect but ultimately more important.</p><p>The abundance of data also brings new challenges. With large datasets, issues of data quality and bias can easily go unnoticed, creating a false sense of confidence that more data automatically translates into better science. In hypothesis testing, very large samples reduce standard errors, making even trivial relationships appear statistically significant—though they may have little or no biological meaning.</p><p>To overcome these challenges, we need to return to the roots of our discipline. What questions do we want to address? By choosing the questions ourselves, i","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"23 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.70013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145469446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bridging worlds: exploring synergies between the arts and biodiversity conservation","authors":"Ivan Jarić,&nbsp;Stephanie Januchowski-Hartley,&nbsp;Stefano Mammola,&nbsp;Jagoba Malumbres-Olarte,&nbsp;Christina Lux,&nbsp;Sarah L Crowley,&nbsp;Béatrice Albert,&nbsp;Ricardo A Correia,&nbsp;Ioanna Daphne Giannoulatou,&nbsp;Jonathan M Jeschke,&nbsp;Richard J Ladle,&nbsp;Sarah Markes,&nbsp;Jane Mutiny,&nbsp;Athulya Pillai,&nbsp;Valerio Sbragaglia,&nbsp;Diogo Veríssimo,&nbsp;Uri Roll","doi":"10.1002/fee.70012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.70012","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Collaborations between biodiversity conservation and the arts can lead to synergies and fresh approaches to intractable problems. These collaborations can yield diverse mutual benefits, such as offering reciprocal sources of inspiration, information, and learning; providing one another with new tools and resources for synthesis and innovation; securing funding; and contributing to increased visibility and influence. The arts may be uniquely poised to raise awareness, influence behavioral change, improve well-being, and assist with developing conservation tools and materials. Likewise, conservation can provide artists with relevant expertise, nature-based art material, samples, and resources, as well as inform sustainability aspects of the arts. Effective synergies between the arts and conservation will necessitate greater funding and institutional support, improved willingness to collaborate, better recognition of the benefits of artists’ involvement in interdisciplinary conservation teams, and sound empirical methods to gauge such collaborations.</p>","PeriodicalId":171,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment","volume":"23 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.70012","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145626640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}