The need for an individual-based global change ecology

作者：Florian Jeltsch, Manuel Roeleke, Ahmed Abdelfattah, Robert Arlinghaus, Gabriele Berg, Niels Blaum, Luc De Meester, Elke Dittmann, Jana A. Eccard, Bertrand Fournier, Ursula Gaedke, Cara A. Gallagher, Lynn Govaert, Márk E. Hauber, Jonathan M. Jeschke, Stephanie Kramer‐Schadt, Anja Linstädter, Ulrike Lucke, Valeria Mazza, Ralf Metzler, Claas Nendel, Viktoriia Radchuk, Matthias C. Rillig, Masahiro Ryo, Katharina Scheiter, Ralph Tiedemann, Britta Tietjen, Christian C. Voigt, Guntram Weithoff, Justyna Wolinska, Damaris Zurell · 发表于：Individual-based Ecology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3897/ibe.1.148200 · 被引用次数：18 · 研究领域：Sustainability and Climate Change Governance、Climate Change Communication and Perception、Climate Change and Geoengineering

Biodiversity loss and widespread ecosystem degradation are among the most pressing challenges of our time, requiring urgent action. Yet our understanding of their causes remains limited because prevailing ecological concepts and approaches often overlook the underlying complex interactions of individuals of the same or different species, interacting with each other and with their environment. We propose a paradigm shift in ecological science, moving from simplifying frameworks that use species, population or community averages to an integrative approach that recognizes individual organisms as fundamental agents of ecological change. The urgency of the biodiversity crisis requires such a paradigm shift to advance ecology towards a predictive science by elucidating the causal mechanisms linking individual variation and adaptive behaviour to emergent properties of populations, communities, ecosystems, and ecological interactions with human interventions. Recent advances in computational technologies, sensors, and analytical tools now offer unprecedented opportunities to overcome past challenges and lay the foundation for a truly integrated Individual-Based Global Change Ecology (IBGCE). Unravelling the potential role of individual variability in global change impact analyses will require a systematic combination of empirical, experimental and modelling studies across systems, while taking into account multiple drivers of global change and their interactions. Key priorities inclu...