News & Comment

Despite projections of a severe extinction event, a window of opportunity is now open for a mix of policies to avoid biodiversity collapse in the Cerrado hotspot.

As the line dividing human and wild habitats becomes thinner, we might be brewing the world's next big pandemic. Zoonoses are diseases that are naturally transmitted between animals and humans, and a new project aims to predict their occurrence.

As peace consolidates in Colombia, can biodiversity survive development? We discuss challenges and opportunities for integrating forest biodiversity conservation into developing, war-dilapidated economies of post-conflict regions, paving the way for a green economy and climate resilient society.

Global Forest Watch provides up-to-date and interactive information on forest cover for governments, the private sector, NGOs, journalists, universities and the general public. We talked to Director Crystal Davis about how it works, its achievements and its future plans.

Evolution is essential to understanding human biology, and the evolutionary impact of humans is an important factor in understanding the biology of other species.

Can applying an evolutionary perspective generate effective change in clinical care and/or public health policy? An evolution-informed research programme has changed practice on UK post-natal units and UK health policies on infant care over the past two decades.

The founding members of the Cultural Evolution Society were surveyed to identify the major scientific questions and ‘grand challenges’ currently facing the study of cultural evolution. We present the results and discuss the implications for an emergent synthesis in the study of culture based on Darwinian principles.

Environmental laws are binding and enforceable tools that constrain human impacts on the environment, but how effective are they at keeping humanity away from critical planetary boundaries?

Given the growing and seemingly limitless capacity to industrialize the oceans, there is a need to reimagine how to effectively measure, monitor and sustainably manage this seventy-one per cent of the Earth's surface.

Clearing up after natural disturbances may not always be beneficial for the environment. We argue that a radical change is needed in the way ecosystems are managed; one that acknowledges the important role of disturbance dynamics.

A steep decline in archiving could make large tree-ring datasets irrelevant. But increased spatiotemporal coverage, the addition of novel parameters at sub-annual resolution, and integration with other in situ and remote Earth observations will elevate tree-ring data as an essential component of global-change research.

Biologists have long been captivated by bats, whose unique adaptations are wonders of evolution. We examine some of the many reasons why they are so important to ecologists and evolutionary biologists.

Major societal problems such as health, energy, food and clean water can be confronted using evolutionary principles, yet this approach is rarely explored. Here, we illustrate how nature's solutions can be applied and discuss the need for evolutionary biologists to inform the general public and influence decision makers.

The land sharing/sparing debate has stagnated. Finding a way forward requires that we ask new questions and, crucially, focus on human well-being and ecosystem services.

Translating biodiversity science into policy is the complex challenge taken on by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. We talked to Executive Secretary Anne Larigauderie about how it works and what it hopes to achieve.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Nature Ecology & Evolution. Our mission is to bring you research and comment that explore the diversity of life in all its grandeur and to promote the importance of ecology and evolution in the wider world.