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¹ See https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/division-environmental-biology-deb?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery (accessed 5 March 2024).

evaluate CSB proposals because each core program would need to have a much wider range of experts to evaluate CSB proposals. Therefore, CSB would strongly benefit from the establishment of an NSF core program that provides a stable and dedicated funding source to support research addressing the interplay of organizational, temporal, and spatial scales and is based on integrated yet flexible frameworks from a systems perspective.

Overarching Recommendation 1: The National Science Foundation should establish a core program on CSB.

The committee recommends that NSF establish a new core program on CSB. This could be a joint effort among the relevant NSF divisions and directorates to help facilitate collaborations, both between the Division of Environmental Biology and other divisions within the Directorate for Biological Sciences (e.g., the Division of Integrative and Organismal Systems and the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences), and with other directorates, such as Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Computer and Information Science and Engineering, Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, Engineering, and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. For example, collaboration with the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships could help with the development of new technologies that would advance CSB; work with the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences would help provide additional insight on the increasing influence of human activities on biological systems and, conversely, the effects of biological systems on human well-being; and collaboration with the Directorate for Geosciences would support work on the linkages between geophysical and atmospheric processes and CSB.

Overarching Recommendation 2: Researchers and funders should develop CSB under integrated yet flexible frameworks.

Second, as described in Chapter 1 and discussed in more detail in the connectivity theme in Chapter 2, CSB addresses questions about biological processes and patterns that emerge at broad organizational, spatial, and/or temporal scales and treats biological systems as part of coupled human and natural systems, given widespread human impacts and intensifying human–nature interactions worldwide. Integrated but flexible frameworks for CSB would enable researchers to better understand and contextualize the connections between data inputs from the biological, abiotic, and socioeconomic realms, and the interactions within, between, and among adjacent and distant locations. Such frameworks would help researchers gain a holistic view of local- and regional-scale ecosystems and continental-scale environmental shifts—insights that will allow the development of more effective and sustainable solutions to the environmental and ecological challenges facing our planet.

An example of an integrated framework could be based on the metacoupling framework (see Box 2-4). The metacoupling framework has been applied to analyses of many topics, including ecosystem services, resilience, vulnerability, biodiversity conservation,

biogeochemical flows, climate change, freshwater use, land use, pollution, impacts of food imports on food security, and effects of international trade on deforestation. Its applications have been reported in terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems in locations encompassing the Antarctic, tropical, temperate, and Arctic regions; urban and rural areas; and upstream, midstream, and downstream regions (Liu 2023). Further, the metacoupling framework expands and integrates many existing concepts, theories, and disciplines. Examples include general systems theory, ecology, geography, metapopulation, metacommunity, meta-ecosystems, scale, teleconnection, and ecosystem services. Although the framework is comprehensive, it is also flexible. For example, a given analysis need not address all the components of the framework but placement under the framework allows it to be linked with other analyses that use the framework, enhancing the collective impact.

VISION

CSB will help scientists address challenges such as understanding how fundamental life processes on Earth are changing across various scales, with respect to increasing human domination in ecosystems all over the planet. As global change and human impacts intensify, Earth’s fundamental processes—from atmospheric circulation to the cycling of nutrients—will experience significant shifts. CSB can enable scientists to integrate data from global-scale observations with data gathered at regional and finer scales to help capture evidence of these shifts. These data will contribute to the development of theory, models, and mechanistic insights, in turn making it possible to identify patterns and processes and determine how they are changing.

CSB can also help address questions around ecosystem services, migration, disease spread, gene flow, and evolution. From a continental-scale viewpoint, scientists will be able to answer questions about how continent-wide environmental and land-use patterns are shaping regional and local-scale changes in ecosystem services, how different ecosystems are responding to invasive plant and animal species, and how infectious diseases arrive at new locations.

CSB can also help to inform and support the conservation of global biodiversity and ecosystem services. By deciphering biological processes from cells to ecosystems, CSB can help identify priority areas for restoration and conservation, for example, by identifying areas that harbor distinct biodiversity, essential corridors for migrations, or regions that allow range-shifting species to adjust to climate and land-use change. Similarly, CSB can help identify which species, populations, and ecosystems are more vulnerable or more resilient to global changes, information that could help inform policy and management decisions. CSB could also help identify nature-based solutions that can benefit biodiversity and ecosystem conservation as well as mitigating the effects of climate change.

CSB can help human health and survival. A major human–nature interaction is agriculture, which is central to food systems for human health and survival (Barrett et al. 2023, Fanzo and Miachon 2023, Sanchez 2020). Agriculture is closely related to the themes of CSB, as it influences and is influenced by biodiversity and ecosystem

functions, resilience and vulnerability, connectivity, and sustainability. For example, agriculture uses a large proportion of land area, accounts for the majority of human-consumed freshwater, generates a significant amount of carbon, affects biodiversity through land conversion and applications of agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides, and connects various parts of the world through trade of agricultural chemicals and food (Hanemann and Young 2020, Heal 2020, Kling et al. 2017). On the other hand, biodiversity is essential for agriculture by providing crop varieties and pollination (Dasgupta 2021, Heal 2020). To maximize the benefits and minimize the negative effects, it is essential to implement effective cross-scale planning, governance, and management (Brown et al. 2021, Lemos and Agrawal 2006, McCay et al. 2014, Segerson 2022).

CSB also opens the door for greater interagency collaboration among various agencies. For example, as agriculture is closely related to the CSB themes, it is logical for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be an important partner to support and benefit from CSB, just like the great work that has occurred through cross-agency collaboration on plant genomes.

Bold initiatives are needed to create a truly continental-scale biology that addresses questions about complex biological systems including human and abiotic factors across multiple, organizational, spatial, and temporal scales from a systems perspective. The vision for a new era of CSB is one that integrates across biological subdisciplines as well as other disciplines and across multiple scales of research, harnessing the power of the biological data revolution to address questions that cannot be answered by observations and experiments conducted at either fine or large scales alone.

Although much progress has been made, there are many major gaps in knowledge, theory, data, networks, tools, and training and capacity building needed to support the vision for CSB. Filling these gaps will require the development of new theories and technologies that encompass not just biology, but atmospheric sciences, mathematics, engineering, physics, geosciences, environmental chemistry, and social sciences. Such effort is crucial to enhance fundamental understanding of ongoing changes in biodiversity, ecosystem services, climate, disease spread, species invasion, gene flows, and biotic interactions. It is also needed to build workforce capacity by mentoring a new generation of innovative scholars and engaging leaders for global sustainability. By addressing these challenges with coordinated and innovative efforts, we can pave the way for a sustainable and resilient future, ensuring the well-being of our planet and its ecosystems.

REFERENCES