The need for an individual-based global change ecology

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 include refining theoretical frameworks, developing benchmark models and standardized toolsets, and systematically incorporating individual variation and adaptive behaviour into empirical field work, experiments and predictive models. The emerging synergies between individual-based modelling, big data approaches, and machine learning hold great promise for addressing the inherent complexity of ecosystems. Each step in the development of IBGCE must systematically balance the complexity of the individual perspective with parsimony, computational efficiency, and experimental feasibility. IBGCE aims to unravel and predict the dynamics of biodiversity in the Anthropocene through a comprehensive study of individual organisms, their variability and their interactions. It will provide a critical foundation for considering individual variation and behaviour for future conservation and sustainability management, taking into account individual-to-ecosystem pathways and feedbacks.

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Publication Details

Journal
Individual-based Ecology
Published
2025-03-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3897/ibe.1.148200
Citations
11
Primary Topic
Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
12.16
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The need for an individual-based global change ecology

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The need for an individual-based global change ecology

Niels Blaum, Márk E. Hauber, Elke Dittmann, Justyna Wolinska, Anja Linstädter, Jana A. Eccard, Claas Nendel, Viktoriia Radchuk, Valeria Mazza, Jonathan M. Jeschke, Ahmed Abdelfattah, Ulrike Lucke, Ralph Tiedemann, Damaris Zurell, Britta Tietjen, Luc De Meester, Gabriele Berg, Ralf Metzler, Lynn Govaert, Christian Claus Voigt, Katharina Scheiter, Masahiro Ryo, Robert Arlinghaus, Florian Jeltsch, Matthias C. Rillig, Cara A. Gallagher, Ursula Gaedke, Stephanie Kramer‐Schadt, Manuel Roeleke, Bertrand Fournier, Guntram Weithoff
article en
11 citations

Abstract

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 include refining theoretical frameworks, developing benchmark models and standardized toolsets, and systematically incorporating individual variation and adaptive behaviour into empirical field work, experiments and predictive models. The emerging synergies between individual-based modelling, big data approaches, and machine learning hold great promise for addressing the inherent complexity of ecosystems. Each step in the development of IBGCE must systematically balance the complexity of the individual perspective with parsimony, computational efficiency, and experimental feasibility. IBGCE aims to unravel and predict the dynamics of biodiversity in the Anthropocene through a comprehensive study of individual organisms, their variability and their interactions. It will provide a critical foundation for considering individual variation and behaviour for future conservation and sustainability management, taking into account individual-to-ecosystem pathways and feedbacks.

Individual-based EcologyVol. 1
The Graduate Center, CUNY (US), Università degli Studi della Tuscia (IT), City University of New York (US), University of Potsdam (DE), Aarhus University (DK), Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (KR), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE), Graz University of Technology (AT), Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (DE), Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (DE), Berlin Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (DE), Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (DE), Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (DE), Technische Universität Berlin (DE), Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (DE), Freie Universität Berlin (DE), KU Leuven (BE)
Life in Land
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
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