Sessions

Global change has a profound impact on our planet, driving changes in the composition of species from different communities. Predicting the trend of biodiversity accurately is essential for ecological conservation and sustainable development. With the strong power of machine learning techniques, ecologists are able to identify many complex networks between environmental factors and biological communities, infer the impact of climate and anthropogenic activities on species compositions and diversity patterns, and project biodiversity under different global change scenarios in the future. To accomplish these, we need to explore the potential for using different machine learning techniques for taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity of various communities, such as microorganisms, plants, and animals. In this Organized Research Session, we are presenting four recent applications of random forest, neural network, and other machine learning techniques on predicting the impact of climate and human activities on the functional diversity of algae at eutrophicated lakes, the beta diversity of trees in boreal forests, the taxonomic diversity of fish at polluted urban rivers, and the water quality indices in China’s freshwater bodies. This session welcomes contributions from global researchers showcasing their works on biodiversity of different communities with the aid of machine learning techniques.

Grasslands are increasingly exposed to interacting pressures from climate warming, altered precipitation regimes, drought, land-use change, and growing demands for agricultural and livestock production. Yet grassland responses to global change are often considered separately from the agricultural and livestock systems that shape resource flows and management. This session asks: How can agro-pastoral coupling regulate grassland functioning, resilience, and sustainability under global change? We invite research examining how the exchange and recycling of biomass, nutrients, water, and energy among croplands, livestock, and grasslands influence vegetation productivity and diversity, soil processes, carbon and nutrient cycling, and ecosystem stability. Particular attention will be given to grazing as an ecological regulator, adaptive management across temporal and spatial scales, and the interactions between grazing, climate variability, and resource availability. A key focus is understanding when agro-pastoral coupling generates ecological synergies and when it creates trade-offs or risks. We welcome studies addressing nonlinear responses, ecological thresholds, context dependence, and mechanisms underlying resilience across climatic and management gradients. Contributions integrating ecological experiments, long-term observations, modelling, remote sensing, and smart-ranching approaches are encouraged. By connecting grassland ecology with agro-pastoral systems, this session seeks to advance a global framework for designing adaptive strategies that sustain ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, and livelihoods under accelerating environmental change.

How should conservation priorities change when migratory species use habitat as dynamic networks rather than as isolated sites? In the case of the Monarch butterfly in California, conservation efforts have traditionally focused on protecting individual overwintering groves along the California coast. However, emerging research is revealing a complex ecology that spans from individual trees, to networks of overwintering sites, and over migratory landscapes across the western United States.

Right now, new studies are improving our understanding of how monarchs select and use overwintering habitat, how grove structure and microclimate influence habitat quality, how individuals move among overwintering locations, and how conditions encountered across the broader western landscape shape migration and winter population dynamics. Together, these advances are challenging long-standing assumptions about what constitutes an overwintering site and how such sites should be evaluated, restored, and managed.

This session will bring together emerging research on western monarch overwintering ecology, habitat selection, movement, and conservation applications. By connecting ecological processes occurring within groves to movement among sites and across migratory landscapes, the session will highlight how new ecological knowledge can inform more effective habitat management. More broadly, it will address a globally relevant conservation challenge: protecting migratory species whose persistence depends on interconnected habitats used across seasons and landscapes.

Coral reefs are among the ecosystems most directly threatened by climate change, and restoration has become an important tool for slowing their decline. As marine heatwaves grow more frequent and severe, restoration programs face a pressing question: how can coral restoration incorporate climate-smart solutions to ensure reefs can adapt?

This session brings together researchers and practitioners working on this question from different angles: identifying naturally heat-resilient “super reefs” as sources of climate-ready coral stock, studying corals from extreme habitats to understand the physiological limits of adaptation, incorporating heat-adapted genotypes into active restoration programs, and grounding restoration in community-based practice and broader food-web ecology. Speakers will share work from reef systems in Indonesia, Australia, and North America, offering perspectives shaped by different ecological conditions, socioeconomic contexts and restoration approaches..

Anthropogenic factors, including rapid climate change, are causing ecosystems to experience multiple stressors on a timeline that is unprecedented. As primary producers, effects of a rapidly changing climate on plants are especially impactful to ecosystems. Due to their sessile nature, plants are generally unable to use migratory strategies to shift their range quickly. Additionally, their ability to genetically adapt to novel environmental conditions is often hampered by relatively long generation times, especially in larger tree species. To ensure the continued provision of vital ecosystem services in key areas such as urban green spaces, and to increase the likelihood of sensitive ecosystems persisting, humans may need to assist some plant communities in adapting to climate changes. While doing so, land managers must also be mindful of the potential for deleterious short and long-term effects on ecosystems. This session will explore strategies for helping plant communities, and by extension ecosystems, to be more resilient to rapid changes in climate. Topics will include common garden studies of assisted gene flow, climate-adjusted planting using local plant populations, and best management practices in planting for climate resilience. Participants will learn ways in which researchers and practitioners are approaching these issues so that they can employ similar strategies in terrestrial ecosystems that are important to them.

Tropical ecosystems are experiencing rapid environmental change, yet recognizing these changes and developing effective responses requires observations spanning years to decades. Long-term tropical field stations are uniquely positioned to meet this challenge. Their sustained presence generates longitudinal ecological data while building deep knowledge of place, enduring partnerships with local communities, indigenous conservation, environmental stewardship, and networks of national and international researchers.

This session will bring together representatives from tropical field stations across the globe to share examples of how longitudinal monitoring has served as an early warning system identifying trends in global change, enabling opportunities for data-driven solutions and action. Case studies will demonstrate how long-term field observations have revealed changes in biodiversity, climate and phenology, species distributions and interactions, disease dynamics, land-use, and human-environment relationships, and how these insights have informed interventions, conservation strategies, adaptive management, and policy.

Moving from observation to action, the session will explore how field stations can also serve as platforms for co-developing, monitoring, and scaling global change solutions. We will conclude by identifying opportunities for collaboration and training with field stations for early detection and rapid response to a changing planet.

This session explores integrated approaches to circular resource recovery and sustainable waste management, examining how social networks, institutional food recovery systems, and recycling technologies can improve resource efficiency and reduce waste. The presentations highlight practical frameworks and technological approaches for connecting recoverable resources with opportunities for reuse, redistribution, and recycling across different environmental and social contexts.

Over the past century, the introduction and spread of non-native species have become increasingly widespread, generating ecological, economic, and social impacts worldwide. This is particularly evident in freshwater ecosystems, where heavy human use amplifies both the vulnerability to invasions and the severity of their impacts. This raises a question: How do freshwater biological invasions differ across these geographic and socioecological contexts, and what can be learned from these diverse experiences? To address this question, this research session will bring together researchers from South and North America to discuss biological invasions in freshwater ecosystems from a range of ecological and regional perspectives. Speakers will highlight different invasive species, invasion pathways, impacts, challenges, and management approaches within their regions. By connecting these perspectives, the session will explore how environmental conditions, socioeconomic contexts, policies, and local priorities shape invasion processes and their consequences. Ultimately, the session aims to foster dialogue across geographic and socioecological boundaries and to identify common patterns, contrasting perspectives, and opportunities for learning across the Americas.