the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 25 Sep 2025
Reviews and syntheses: Current perspectives on biosphere research 2025: from poly-crisis to poly-solutions
Abstract. Accelerating changes across various Earth system compartments, coupled with intensifying geopolitical and socio-economic turbulences, have increased the interdependence of global crises, resulting in a complex polycrisis.
This review summarises recent advances in biosphere research, focusing on ten topics selected for their thematic relevance to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, socio-economic interactions and anthropogenic threats to the biosphere. An interdisciplinary expert panel identified these themes from a public survey, based on scientific relevance and evidence. The aim is to inspire future research and provide decision-makers with actionable solutions. The themes highlight innovative opportunities to enhance resilience, advance the understanding of dryland dynamics, promote a sustainable bioeconomy, foster greener urban planning, regulate disease dynamics, support nature-based solutions, mitigate the impact of conflict on the biosphere, address demographic challenges to ecosystem stewardship, integrate indigenous knowledge and embed biosphere valuation in decision-making processes.
Finally, we emphasise the importance of polysolutions that address the target issue, while simultaneously generating positive outcomes in neighbouring economic, social and ecological domains. To ensure planetary stability, this review highlights the urgent need for policies and investments that prioritise the protection, restoration and sustainable management of the biosphere.
Competing interests: One of the Authors is in the editorial Board of Biogeosciences (A. Rammig)
Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.- Preprint
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Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-3619', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Oct 2025
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AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Friedrich Bohn, 09 Mar 2026
Generally, I struggled to understand the key points being made in this manuscript. I understand that this is meant to be the second publication in a series with the first publication having come out in May 2025, but it took me a long time to understand this from the manuscript itself.
R1.1: Thank you for pointing out a critically important matter. We agree and we will make this more clear in the introduction.
There are a few concerns I have related to this format that I have outlined below. Overall, the intent of this publication seems to be a general review of recent topics of importance within the field of biogeosciences. While I have no issues with this general idea and think it’s a valid scientific endeavor, I do have issues with how this manuscript approaches this task.The conclusions to many of the sections are extremely vague and do not show new insights or articulate compiled insights well.
R1.2: The key takeaways for each theme are presented at the beginning of each section. However, we agree that some of these are quite general, so we will refine the conclusions to emphasise new and/or synthesised insights.
The language used throughout is overly vague, and the talking points jumped around within sections. For example, the resilience section focuses its key points on ecosystem resilience, but the concluding few paragraphs focus exclusively on improvements to agroecology, which felt like a large jump in logic and topic to me. There are similar jumps in topic/content throughout the manuscript.
R1.3: To clarify the relationship between the topic and the content, we will revise the headers so that the theme sections already convey an overarching key message. For example, 'Regenerative agriculture can increase the resilience of agroecological systems and support biodiversity' instead of 'Ecosystem resilience'.
The methods are incomplete and poorly described.
R 1.4: We followed an almost identical approach to that used in the first publication in the series (Bohn et al. 2025), with differences being described. However, we will add more details about the composition of the editorial board and the method of the rating. We will also include a flow diagram showing this year's process, starting with the second survey in February 2025.
There are formatting issues (no indentations for new paragraphs, certain words randomly bolded in one section) that were likely copy and paste errors from elsewhere. In particular, the formatting and bolded words in the concluding Synthesis section (starting midsection on line 1398 and ending on line 1427) is extremely similar to ChatGPT output. Although I recognize the authors note their use of AI for grammar and writing assistance, such use should be heavily scrutinized and reformatted before inclusion in this manuscript.
R 1.5 We will prepare a carefully reformatted paper version omitting bold formatting and other issues.
Some figures (Figures 2-3) are also not referenced in the text.
R 1.6 Thank you for spotting this. We will ensure all all figures are properly referenced in the text correctly
The topic of the paper and entire introductory paragraph are nearly identical to the Bohn paper published in May 2025. I am skeptical of how this manuscript was produced, given that the previously published Bohn paper is intended to also be a review of recent biosphere research with interdisciplinary connections. My concern for this is not topical, but how similar the writing itself is between the papers. Below I have highlighted some comparisons between the papers where the writing borders on self-plagiarism:
R1.7 Similar introductions are common in related studies. Examples include '10 New Insights on Climate Change' (Martin et al., 2021 and 2022), 'State of the Climate Report' (Ripple et al., 2023 and 2024) and 'Carbon Budget' (Friedlingstein et al., 2021 and 2022). These initiatives are produced annually as they all aim to summarise the latest scientific developments to inform the decision-making of policymakers participating in the Conference of the Parties (COP) for climate and biodiversity. Nonetheless, we will make further attempts to distinguish the content from previous versions by tailoring it more towards the identified topics from this edition.
This manuscript, abstract, line 70: “This review summarises recent advances in biosphere research, focusing on ten topics selected for their thematic relevance to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, socio-economic interactions and anthropogenic threats to the biosphere. An interdisciplinary expert panel identified these themes from a public survey, based on scientific relevance and evidence.” Compare to Bohn et al., 2025 abstract: “This review of recent advances in biosphere research aims to provide information on eight selected themes related to changes in biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, social and economic interactions with ecosystems, and the impacts of climate change on the biosphere. An interdisciplinary panel of experts selected these eight themes from a public survey based on relevance and scientific evidence that have the potential to guide future actions as well as inspire future research questions.”
This manuscript, introduction , line 93 “There is growing recognition from governments and businesses, but also NGOs, CBOs and other initiatives, that our societies need to fully account for human impacts on nature and balance our demands for renewing and non-renewing resources (P. Dasgupta & Treasury, 2022; TNFD, 2023). A whole-of-society perspective is needed, as scholars also highlight that fair and just transformations are crucial to reach the global sustainability goals for climate and biodiversity in the areas of food supply, energy, and material systems, thus ensuring human well-being in the long term (Folke et al., 2021; Griggs et al., 2013; Jiménez-Aceituno et al., 2025; Leach et al., 2018; A. Martin et al., 2020; McDermott et al., 2023; Obura et al., 2023; Pickering et al., 2022; Schlesier et al., 2024).” Compare to Bohn et al., 2025 introduction: “There is growing recognition from governments and businesses that our economies need to take full account of the impacts on nature and balance our demands of resources (Dasgupta and Treasury, 2022; TNFD, 2023). A whole-of-society perspective is needed, as scholars also highlight that fair and just transformations are crucial to reach the global sustainability goals for climate and biodiversity in the areas of food supply, energy, and material systems, thus ensuring human well-being in the long term (Griggs et al., 2013; Leach et al., 2018; Martin et al., 2020; Folke et al., 2021; Pickering et al., 2022; Obura et al., 2023; McDermott et al., 2023; Schlesier et al., 2024).”
This manuscript, abstract, line 111: “Alongside these special reports, numerous scientists have published summaries on a variety of subjects - sometimes under the heading 'Scientists' Warning' (e.g. Fernández-Llamazares et al., 2021; Harvey et al., 2023; C. C. Pereira et al., 2024; Sachs et al., 2025) or within the annual '10 New Insights in Climate Science' series (e.g. Bustamante et al., 2023; M. A. Martin et al., 2022; Schaeffer et al., 2025). The second synthesis in the Current Perspectives on Biosphere Research series reviews the latest policy-relevant, peer-reviewed, biosphere-related research findings, with the aim to inform political and economic decision-making in the years ahead (see also Bohn et al., 2025). This international, interdisciplinary effort complements existing assessments and bridge the gap until the next major assessment reports are published. We hope it will inspire scientists to pursue interdisciplinary questions and holistic solutions to address the polycrisis of the Earth system.” Compare to Bohn et al., 2025 abstract: “In addition to these special reports, many scientists have published summaries on a wide range of topics under the heading “Scientists' Warning” (e.g. Cavicchioli et al., 2019; Pyšek et al., 2020; Ripple et al., 2020)… Due to their specific focus on certain topics and indicators, these reports sometimes lack the interdisciplinary perspective that can be observed in the above-mentioned special reports of IPCC and IPBES. The “10 New Insights in Climate Science” reports address many of the challenges mentioned above, focusing on new findings from recent climate-related research. They are published annually and contain contributions from various disciplines (e.g. Martin et al., 2022; Bustamante et al., 2023). This series should be complemented by similar reports from other research areas related to the Earth system crisis. Given the lack of such an integrative, annually published report focused on issues related to the biosphere, this publication summarizes recent advances in this field of research by addressing biosphere-related challenges and bridging the time between the comprehensive assessment reports of IPCC and IPBES.”
This manuscript, abstract, line 120: “We present this year ten themes that are gaining traction in the scientific community with recent and significant findings from biosphere research, based predominantly on peer-reviewed literature published since January 2023. Each theme summarizes background information and the latest scientific advances, identifies challenges and offers strategies for maintaining thriving ecosystems or enhancing degraded ecosystems and their diverse contributions to human society. For each theme, we emphasize the synergies, trade-offs, and implications for other related themes in this synthesis. This contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of processes in the biosphere, their mutual dependencies with more strategic human decisions, and to stimulate future research questions.” Compare to Bohn et al., 2025 abstract: “Here, we present eight themes with recent and significant findings from biosphere research, based predominantly from peer-reviewed literature published since January 2022. Our themes present background information as well as challenges and offer strategies for maintaining vivid ecosystems or enhancing degraded ecosystems and the services they provide to human society. In addition, these themes are gaining traction in the scientific community and stimulate future research questions. For each theme, the key findings are presented along with an emphasis on the links and implications for related themes, which contributes to a comprehensive understanding of processes in the biosphere and their interactions with human systems.”I see that in the May 2025 Bohn et al. paper, it states “This first synthesis and future syntheses in the series Current perspectives on biosphere research are intended to support decision-making processes in the coming years by reporting and summarizing selected recent findings from biosphere research, thus supplementing existing reports and bridging the gap until the next comprehensive assessment reports are published.” However, it is not clear that this new manuscript is a continuation of this series, or how the respective paper topics were grouped the way they are.
R1.8 We will explain the concept of an ongoing publication series more clearly in the introduction and describe the topic selection process in greater detail. See also answer 1.1 & 1.4.Additionally, the methods section for the manuscript does not stand by itself. For me to fully understand the methods used, I had to go back to the May Bohn et al. 2025 paper. From that paper, I had to go back to the Martin et al. 2022 paper. So, in order to find a full description of the methods used, I had to go back two papers, even though the methods were just a simple survey of scientists. It is also not clear whether the list of topics used for this manuscript came from the same survey used for the May Bohn et al. 2025 paper or not. If so, why are two papers being written for the same survey? If it was a different survey, why were they conducted so close together? I also could not find Annex A, so I could compare the methods used for the two papers.
R1.9: Thank you for highlighting the missing elements of the Methods section. We will include a flow diagram showing this year's process, beginning with the second survey in February 2025 (see also R 1.4).
The reason for the annual survey is that similar papers are published annually. See the list in R1.7. The second climate COP is held annually, while the biodiversity COP is held biennially. This demonstrates the policy need for up-to-date reviews of scientific research. Third, scientific knowledge is growing quite fast, as evidenced by the number of publications, which would justify repeating this survey annually.
I suggest the authors present the statistics of the papers being referred to for this synthesis instead of only showing the demographic makeup of the authors of this paper. The reason I say this, is that ensuring a geopolitically diverse group of authors does not necessarily ensure that the information being sourced is not geopolitically biased to a certain region or entirely representative of global concerns. The inclusion of both sets of statistics would make for a more powerful claim to representation.
R1.10: Good point: We will determine the regional coverage by analysing the geographical regions examined in all the cited papers.
Additionally, it is apparent there is supposed to be one of these papers each year (although it is unclear why one is summarizing papers from 2022-2025 and the other is summarizing papers from 2023-2025).
R1.11: The first publication was intended to cover publications from 2022 to 2024. However, due to a lengthy review process, publications from 2025 were also added. The same will probably happen for this publication, meaning that the final period will cover 2023 to 2026, with emphasis put on identification of the most critically important novel topics.
Because this is really not one paper, but a proposed series of papers, I think it is especially important for there to be statistics on the papers being summarized. Otherwise, this paper is not really a synthesis of important topics written about over the past few years, but a synthesis of what the surveyed authors perceive to be the most important during the time period the paper is being written. For example, how many papers were published each year from 2023-2025 on the topics ‘resilience’, ‘drylands’, etc? Did the topics this paper focused on increase in mentions over the past few years? Were the topics chosen from any metric other than just the opinions from a set of scientists, which are subject to specialization bias? Given the concept for the proposed series, the methods need to be more data-based for the chosen focuses to be justified. Otherwise, this series is more of an opinion piece than a true literature-driven review or synthesis.
R1.12: This is a valid observation. We acknowledge that our manuscript and methods differs from the conventional structure of a topic-based review (e.g. a comprehensive review of 'drylands'). However, the paper's intent is to collect and synthesize recent insights — defined as literature published within the last three years — that are also relevant to decision-makers as identified by topic experts. These insights and supportive literature have been identified by the authors of each section, who are experts in their field, and by the broad interdisciplinary editorial board. By doing so we follow the tradition of similar structured papers from the climate community, the '10 New Insights in Climate Science' series
To avoid any misrepresentation that chapters represent a comprehensive classical review, the chapter titles will be reframed as concise scientific statements, with the chapter text serving to substantiate the key takeaways.
Additionally, the Methods section will clarify that the primary literature underpinning the novel insights presented in each chapter is restricted to works published from 2023 onwards, although older literature will be permitted where necessary to provide essential background or contextualise the key findings.
The title of the paper is “Current Perspectives on Biosphere Research 2025: From Poly-Crisis to Poly-Solutions”. The article class to which this manuscript has been assigned is 'Reviews and Synthesises', and this must be written at the beginning of the title.The section for each theme begins with key takeaways (for example, line 169, line 297, etc), which are formatted as bullet point notes. I think the casual formatting of this is not useful and harder to understand than if this section was summarized in a paragraph structure.
R1.13: Since the paper is aimed not only at scientists but also at decision-makers, and several of them have provided feedback on the last paper (Bohn et al. 2025), stating that they would like to see key findings, we propose maintaining the current structure. However, we will endeavour to harmonise the style and length of the statements between sections.
Bohn, F. J., Bastos, A., Martin, R., Rammig, A., Koh, N. S., Sioen, G. B., ... & Yoshida, Y. (2025). Reviews and syntheses: Current perspectives on biosphere research 2024–2025–eight findings from ecology, sociology, and economics. Biogeosciences, 22(10), 2425-2460.I focused mostly on the dryland section, because that represents my expertise more than the other sections. I found the background subsection under the drylands topic well-written and informative. This was the best section I read from this paper. Some more notes below.
R1.14: Thank you very much for the kind appreciation of our work.Line 359: The sentence starting on this line is incomplete.
R1.15: Thank you very much for pointing that out. Based on your subsequent comments, we have revised the entire paragraph on water fluxes in drylands, making the text more specific.
Line 365: The line “Mechanisms like nighttime CO₂ absorption due to cooling and carbonate precipitation, as well as CO₂ transport from fast soil air replacement, are important (Kim et al., 2024; Moya et al., 2019).” is an example of some of the vagueness I was referring to. Why is this important? How does this fit in with the sentence before and after?
R1.16: Thank you for this helpful comment. We agree with the reviewer that this section lacked clarity and connectivity. We already revised the whole paragraph to be more specific and improve the logical connection between the sentences. It now reads as follows:
"Drylands have extended dry periods with rapid biogeochemical responses to episodial moisture pulses, which makes accurate measurements of water cycle components particularly important. However, several components of the water cycle are very uncertain. For example, global datasets of precipitation highly disagree in arid regions (Markonis et al., 2024), or overestimate evapotranspiration (e.g., FLUXCOM) (Nelson & Walther et al., 2024). Even bare soil evaporation in dry conditions is often underestimated (Balugani et al., 2023; MacBean et al., 2020), likely because widely-used models (e.g., Van Genuchten) fail to predict significant water movement in dry soils (Saaltink et al., 2020). Furthermore, non-rainfall water inputs like dew, fog, and soil vapor adsorption are widespread and continuous water inputs, with disproportional relevance when rain falls erratically but are usually not measured (Kidron & Starinsky, 2019, Paulus et al. 2025). These small but regular sources of liquid water explain nighttime CO₂ absorption due to cooling and carbonate precipitation (Kim et al. 2024). The scarcity of soil flux data in arid regions remains a major barrier to representing dryland-specific processes in models (Stell et al., 2021), including faster transport of subsoil CO₂ (Moya et al., 2019). "
Line 367: The line “The management and mitigation of anthropogenic influences on dryland ecosystems must account for the potential creation of more problems than solutions” does not make sense to me.
R1.17: Thank you for your comment. We re-arranged the whole paragraph (lines 370 to 377) in the manuscript, also related to your general concerns about the clarity of this paragraph. Please find the revised text in the comment further below. R1.19:
Line 370: The statement “Many dryland ecology programs lack knowledge of local communities and Indigenous peoples, from resources rights to current socio-economic relationships, to co-create and share knowledge, as well as to support diverse capacity.” needs a citation.
R1.18: We have added a citation:
Souther, S., Colombo, S., & Lyndon, N. N. (2023). Integrating traditional ecological knowledge into US public land management: Knowledge gaps and research priorities. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11, 988126. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.988126Line 371-374: The statement about the Bedouins is informative, but fails to connect to the rest of the paragraph. How does this fact about the Bedouins tie in with problems in the policies dryland management? How does Lake Nasser tie into this? What policies specifically led to its creation, and why did that lead to a change in Bedouins settlement patterns?
R1.19: We agree with the reviewer that the way this example was presented did not communicate a key point. Based on all comments on lines 370 to 377, we have revised the paragraph and hope that we have now been able to explain more clearly how management projects influence local communities on the one hand, but also how their participation can contribute to successful dryland restoration on the other hand.
"Over the past few decades, experiences with the management of dryland ecosystems have been mixed. Many dryland ecology programs in the past lacked knowledge of local communities and Indigenous peoples, from resource rights to current socio-economic relationships, to co-create and share knowledge, as well as to support diverse capacities (Souther et al. 2023). Kandal et al. (2022) highlight some examples of how Bedouins in the Wadi Allaqi of the Eastern Desert of Egypt were substantially affected by the consequences of the construction of the Aswan High Dam, which was followed by the Bedouins settlement and severe local overgrazing. A research project focusing on this overgrazing turned out successful by actively integrating Bedouins into finding solutions in the form of agro-pastoralism, which ultimately provided food, fodder, and restored the degraded lands. However, in areas rich in natural resources (e.g., lithium, copper, rare earth elements), the balance between local distribution and global benefits is even more fragile (e.g., Agusdinata et al., 2018). Furthermore, the highly efficient vegetable and fruit production areas are particularly susceptible to climate change impacts as they are operated by vulnerable population groups like small-scale farmers, who contribute over 50% of global vegetable and fruit production (Herrero et al., 2017). These examples underscore the need to not only address ecological questions but also explore the socio-economic dimensions of dryland management for enhancing resilience and sustainability in these vital regions."
Line 374-377: The paragraph continues to list one-liner concerns in dryland ecosystems without connecting them to each other or the paragraph’s beginning sentence.
R1.20: This concern was addressed by our previous answer.
Section 3.2.1. Offering solutions: The first paragraph of this subsection talks about the benefits of remote sensing, but it is unclear how these benefits are specifically solutions to the challenges introduced in the previous section. How does this connect to the socio-economic dimensions highlighted? There are many people who have long specialized on using remote sensing in drylands. What solutions are being suggested here that are different than “we should use remote sensing to study drylands”? Later in the section, there is more mentions of the need to connect with dryland communities, but solutions are still not offered. The dryland sections overall seems like a repetition of: “Drylands are important but hard to quantify. We can use well-known tools to study them. We need to connect with dryland communities.” However the section fails to mention specific case studies of dryland community engagement (of which many exist) or move past the problems to describe “polysolutions”.
R1.21: Thank you for this specific comment. We hope with the new edits we can address your concern by better highlighting why we think there is substantial potential in new remote sensing technologies, particularly related to drylands:
"Weak vegetation signals, strong soil background effects, and rapid ecosystem responses at hourly to daily timescales in drylands have historically limited observational accuracy and model performance. However, advances in the spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution of ground-based, airborne, and satellite sensors are increasingly reducing these uncertainties and improving our ability to characterize ecosystem dynamics in drylands."
As well as by revising the final paragraph of the solution session, we hope we now better elaborate the linkage with dryland communities, corresponding to the Earth Science to Action framework shown by the Figure 3:
"The integrated dataset and improved models will help deliver more effective land management and policy-making decisions as restoration, protection, and regeneration requires large investment. For example, observations in US drylands indicated significant vegetation changes over the past 30 years (Kleinhesselink et al., 2023), supporting the application of Sagebrush Conservation Design that aims to conserve drylands by prioritizing the protection and expansion of intact areas (Doherty et al. 2022). Nevertheless, it is critical to note that community engagement is necessary for local success (Moreno-Casasola, 2022) and initiatives' long-term sustainability (Fox & Cundill, 2018). Experience from previous large-scale interventions that have led to unintended trade-offs, particularly when carbon sequestration targets are pursued without sufficient consideration of local hydrological constraints (Fu et al. 2025). To address this, it is critical to sustain long-term knowledge platforms such as the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT), which have been collecting documented sustainable land management practices for over three decades, integrating technical designs, socioeconomic contexts, and participatory tools that incorporate local experience into planning and evaluation. There is growing evidence that restoration measures, especially large-scale tree planting, are more socio-economically sustainable when embedded in existing land use practices rather than implemented as standalone measures (Di Sacco et al. 2021). Together, improved observation capacities and accumulated experiential knowledge form the basis for the development of strategies for restoring drylands."
Di Sacco, A., Hardwick, K. A., Blakesley, D., Brancalion, P. H., Breman, E., Cecilio Rebola, L., ... & Antonelli, A. (2021). Ten golden rules for reforestation to optimize carbon sequestration, biodiversity recovery and livelihood benefits. Global Change Biology, 27(7), 1328-1348. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15498
Fu, F., Wang, S., Wu, X., Chen, S., Tan, Z., Ye, C., & Grünzweig, J. M. (2025). Integrating hydrological impacts for cost-effective dryland ecological restoration. Communications Earth & Environment, 6(1), 667. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02649-8Each section seems to have similar comprehension issues, where each sentence does not logically connect to the sentence before or after. It gives the impression that this paper was once all bullet points from a brainstorming session, but then was not properly synthesized into a readable manuscript.
R1.22: We will carefully review the logical connection between the sentences in each section.Below I have highlighted what I find interesting about the manuscript, and suggest constructive revisions:
I did find the introduction of the idea of “polysolutions” to be a fascinating framework, and a great contribution to the field if implemented appropriately. In particular, I see a lot of potential in the framework described by the figure at the end of the synthesis sections. However, the definition of polysolutions is not given until the end of the paper. I think this manuscript would benefit from a complete restructuring where the idea of polycrises and polysolutions are defined and introduced in the beginning, so that each section and example field could be tied back to the “polysolution” thesis. I think a restructuring of the topics, adding specificity to each section (e.g., what policies specifically are polysolutions and why), and clear syntheses that tie back to the “polysolution” idea could lead this to being publishable.
R1.23: Thank you very much for these motivating thoughts. We will continue to develop the framework and link it closely to the individual subject areas by emphasizing the polycrisal nature of the topic and elaborating on the aspects of poly-solutions.
I also think there needs to be a clearer definition of what time periods are being covered for each paper in this series (e.g., why the May Bohn 2025 paper covers 2022-2025 and this manuscript covers 2023-2025). The 3 year overlap does not make sense, and the fact that these are separate reviews being submitted separately is not justified.
R1.24: See answer: R1.11:
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3619-AC2
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AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Friedrich Bohn, 09 Mar 2026
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-3619', Anonymous Referee #3, 17 Jan 2026
General comments:
I enjoyed reading the manuscript titled “Reviews and Syntheses: Current Perspectives on Biosphere Research 2025: From Poly-Crisis to Poly-Solutions.” The authors present ten emerging themes in the scientific community, based on a literature review of papers published since 2023. For each theme, they provide key takeaways, background information, challenges, and potential solutions. At the end, they offer a synthesis of the themes, illustrate the concept of poly-solutions, and conclude with a brief summary.
I appreciated the concise presentation of each theme and was particularly glad to see important topics such as “Geopolitics and Conflicts,” “Demographic Dynamics,” and “Indigenous and Local Knowledge” highlighted in the study. They are overlooked themes that are integral to advancing the frontiers of contemporary biosphere research and solutions. However, I believe the manuscript is lacking substantial information regarding the methods used, as well as in the synthesis and conclusion sections. The synthesis, which is a key part of the manuscript, does not adequately address many of the themes and feels disconnected from the themes greatly summarized by experts in the previous pages. I didn’t see any thoughtful elaboration on Ecosystem Resilience, Geopolitics and Conflicts, Demographic Dynamics, Drylands, Urban Centers, and Public Health in the synthesis. Rather, it primarily emphasizes themes such as Nature-based Solutions and Sustainable Bioeconomy that directly align with the presented poly-solutions framework. I also recognize that these later themes are transversal and addressed within other themes, but this should be made explicit. I would appreciate seeing addressed: 1) How are all the themes interconnected? 2) How are each of them represented within the poly-solutions framework? The valuation paradigm discussed in section 3.10 is essential to this conversation and, in my point of view, warrants special attention. I believe the increasing focus on valuing social benefits, or on finding a balance among economic, social, and ecological advantages, is a key insight that is transversal to some of the themes and, as a consequence, to the manuscript. Furthermore, I think the conclusion should be rewritten to reflect the revisions needed to the synthesis section.
Specific comments:
Introduction: Please define poly-crisis and poly-solutions here. This will support cohesion throughout the manuscript, as the introduction and synthesis seem to use different terms. Poly-crisis and poly-solutions start to appear consistently in the text on page 49, only in the synthesis section.
Lines 115-125: This description of the approach requires further clarification. Could the authors include additional details from lines 150-155 before introducing the themes around line 130?
Line 155: What do the authors mean by scientific reputation? Could they clarify how the teams were selected?
Figure 1: Where is North America? Can the authors explain why it is missing or in which group it is included?
Section titles: I strongly recommend improving the section titles. Although the review process may rely on keywords, the content of each section has a specific direction that should be reflected in the title: “Within this broad theme, what is the main discussion?” For instance, the section on ecosystem resilience primarily addresses resilience to human activities rather than to climate change and extreme events, and presents agroforestry as a solution. Could the authors please rewrite the section title to better reflect the content being presented?
Lines 190-195 and 289-290: The use of the term "connectivity" here doesn’t seem accurate to me. Would "interdependency" be a more appropriate term? In certain instances, such as landscape connectivity and hydrological processes, connectivity is indeed beneficial for ecosystem resilience. There are many scenarios where restoring connectivity is essential for long-term resilience. However, I agree we aim to restore connectivity between systems while also maintaining their independence for sustained resilience. Does that make sense? If not, could authors clarify the use of the term "connectivity" in this context? Consider referencing the authors who use this terminology.
Figure 2: This figure appears to be misplaced. Where in the text do the authors mention this figure? The caption requires additional detail. Which papers did the authors use to adapt or create this conceptual figure? It seems this figure should be called around lines 247-251 and set after that.
Line 200-205: Once again, the theme centers on agriculture/ human impacts and disturbances. If this is not clear beforehand, then the initial statement of the challenge is incorrect. Where are the abiotic disturbances, diseases, and so on? Please clarify the topic under discussion here.
Lines 265-266: Could the authors please include a reference for this sentence?
Line 857: Please reference “positive tipping points”.
Lines 883-884: What does the 60% refer to? Does this 2015 reference come from the literature review? Wasn't it intended for papers from 2023 to 2025? Could the authors please clarify this? This example appears to be overly focused on specific details of one NbS project rather than fitting within the paragraph's overall context.
Line 1005: Perhaps “geopolitical conflicts” instead of “armed conflicts”?
Lines 1223-1224: I am quite uncomfortable with the idea of mentioning co-ownership without properly discussing it. Presenting co-ownership as a solution requires a more in-depth conversation within a framework that thoughtfully addresses historical inequalities and avoids extractivism. I believe that the authors should expand on this topic, as readers would appreciate a more comprehensive and thoughtful discussion of the concept.
Line 1267: Could authors please remind the readers what the “intertwined global crises” are that they are discussing here?
Lines 1369-1370, and synthesis section overall: These terms differ from those used in the introduction, and the authors' overall aims presented should be connected and cohesive throughout the text. I strongly suggest that authors please try to better connect the synthesis with the terms, context, and goals presented in the introduction.
Line 1378-1380: I am not confident that this sentence directly and solely relates to section 3.9. Could the authors make a broader connection between the ideas exposed in the synthesis and all the sections that address the insights raised here? This exercise should include not only examples but also all relevant pieces that support those statements.
Line 1400: I believe that using the term "shareholders" would be more appropriate here. Alternatively, authors could explicitly mention both shareholders and stakeholders.
Line 1440 and conclusion: As systems thinking and technology have been presented, albeit superficially, as solutions to the poly-crisis, I wonder whether there's room for more mentions and discussion of new technologies. Beyond remote sensing and camera traps, the authors could mention and further discuss other emerging AI- and cyberinfrastructure-enabled systems, such as digital twins, which are being created to support biosphere research and improve the measurement of Earth systems' poly-crisis and optimization of poly-solutions.
Lines 1464-1466: I truly miss the social aspects of this review and perspective manuscript here, and I strongly encourage the authors to reconsider this in the final sentence.
Technical comments:
Line 922: Please double-check the writing here: “both degraded lands and incomes, and strengthened social cohesion.”
Section 3.10. I believe the section title is incorrect here. The section on Sustainable Bioeconomy is 3.3, correct?
Throughout the text, standardize poly-crisis and poly-solutions, with or without hyphens.
Throughout the text, double-check concepts that are being rewritten in full, such as Nature-based Solutions (NbS).
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3619-RC2 -
AC3: 'Reply on RC2', Friedrich Bohn, 09 Mar 2026
General comments:
I enjoyed reading the manuscript titled “Reviews and Syntheses: Current Perspectives on Biosphere Research 2025: From Poly-Crisis to Poly-Solutions.” The authors present ten emerging themes in the scientific community, based on a literature review of papers published since 2023. For each theme, they provide key takeaways, background information, challenges, and potential solutions. At the end, they offer a synthesis of the themes, illustrate the concept of poly-solutions, and conclude with a brief summary.
I appreciated the concise presentation of each theme and was particularly glad to see important topics such as “Geopolitics and Conflicts,” “Demographic Dynamics,” and “Indigenous and Local Knowledge” highlighted in the study. They are overlooked themes that are integral to advancing the frontiers of contemporary biosphere research and solutions. However, I believe the manuscript is lacking substantial information regarding the methods used, as well as in the synthesis and conclusion sections. The synthesis, which is a key part of the manuscript, does not adequately address many of the themes and feels disconnected from the themes greatly summarized by experts in the previous pages. I didn’t see any thoughtful elaboration on Ecosystem Resilience, Geopolitics and Conflicts, Demographic Dynamics, Drylands, Urban Centers, and Public Health in the synthesis. Rather, it primarily emphasizes themes such as Nature-based Solutions and Sustainable Bioeconomy that directly align with the presented poly-solutions framework. I also recognize that these later themes are transversal and addressed within other themes, but this should be made explicit. I would appreciate seeing addressed:
1) How are all the themes interconnected?We will develop a systematic map linking the different themes and highlight their co benefits with the addition of an explanatory paragraph.
2) How are each of them represented within the poly-solutions framework? The valuation paradigm discussed in section 3.10 is essential to this conversation and, in my point of view, warrants special attention. I believe the increasing focus on valuing social benefits, or on finding a balance among economic, social, and ecological advantages, is a key insight that is transversal to some of the themes and, as a consequence, to the manuscript.We will present a table evaluating all 10 sections in respect to their influence of on the different spheres of sustainability.
Furthermore, I think the conclusion should be rewritten to reflect the revisions needed to the synthesis section.
We will revise the conclusion carefully after the whole revision of the manuscript including all comments of the reviewers.
Specific comments:
Introduction: Please define poly-crisis and poly-solutions here. This will support cohesion throughout the manuscript, as the introduction and synthesis seem to use different terms. Poly-crisis and poly-solutions start to appear consistently in the text on page 49, only in the synthesis section.Good point! Yes, we will introduce and define 'poly-crisis' and 'poly-solutions' in more detail in the introduction.
Lines 115-125: This description of the approach requires further clarification. Could the authors include additional details from lines 150-155 before introducing the themes around line 130?We will add a bit more conceptional details from the method section into the introduction and revise the method section. E.g. We will include a flow diagram showing this year's process in more detail.
Line 155: What do the authors mean by scientific reputation? Could they clarify how the teams were selected?Thank you for rising this point. All voting members of the editorial board held the title of professor. The editorial team was selected based on their UN region of origin, and we also tried to cover a broad spectrum of expertise. Recruitment was completed before the deadline for submitting themes. We will revise the text accordingly.
Figure 1: Where is North America? Can the authors explain why it is missing or in which group it is included?North America is part of the UN-Region WEOG (western Europe and other countries group)
We will add this information to the text.
Section titles: I strongly recommend improving the section titles. Although the review process may rely on keywords, the content of each section has a specific direction that should be reflected in the title: “Within this broad theme, what is the main discussion?” For instance, the section on ecosystem resilience primarily addresses resilience to human activities rather than to climate change and extreme events, and presents agroforestry as a solution. Could the authors please rewrite the section title to better reflect the content being presented?We agree. We will revise the section headers so that the theme sections already convey an overarching key message.
Lines 190-195 and 289-290: The use of the term "connectivity" here doesn’t seem accurate to me. Would "interdependency" be a more appropriate term? In certain instances, such as landscape connectivity and hydrological processes, connectivity is indeed beneficial for ecosystem resilience. There are many scenarios where restoring connectivity is essential for long-term resilience. However, I agree we aim to restore connectivity between systems while also maintaining their independence for sustained resilience. Does that make sense? If not, could authors clarify the use of the term "connectivity" in this context? Consider referencing the authors who use this terminology.Yes, we can clarify and unify the use of the terms connectivity and connectedness in the mentioned paragraphs, it seems that we all agree here on the importance for managing ecosystem resilience. We take connections to connote the exchange between two or more entities and the qualities, structures, and circumstances that allow for this interaction - so this allows for more dynamics to evolve than interdependence. We will add the respective reference for the conceptual clarification:
Andersson E, Martin R, Anderson P, et al (2025) Resilient Biodiversity Conservation: Working with Social–Ecological Connections to Navigate Crises. BioScience biaf156. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaf156
Figure 2: This figure appears to be misplaced. Where in the text do the authors mention this figure? The caption requires additional detail. Which papers did the authors use to adapt or create this conceptual figure? It seems this figure should be called around lines 247-251 and set after that.Many thanks for pointing this out - we will update the figure caption here
"Figure 2. Conceptual figure showing the resilience and recovery following a disturbance for three different ecosystems regarding carbon flux over time."
and adapt the placing in the corresponding, revised paragraph.
Line 200-205: Once again, the theme centers on agriculture/ human impacts and disturbances. If this is not clear beforehand, then the initial statement of the challenge is incorrect. Where are the abiotic disturbances, diseases, and so on? Please clarify the topic under discussion here.
We agree that the introductory sentence is overly complex and can be misread. For emphasizing the chain of causation we will revise to something similar as “Global environmental changes lead to ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss, which then severely disrupt agricultural systems and compromise food production.” We will revise the section to point out more clearly the role of abiotic disturbances and diseases which are part of this major reinforcing feedback between multiple scales in agricultural systems.
Lines 265-266: Could the authors please include a reference for this sentence?Thank you for noticing the missing references. it should be
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. (2022). Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Convention on Biological Diversity. https://www.cbd.int/gbf/
European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment. (2022). Nature restoration law. Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2779/86148
Line 857: Please reference “positive tipping points”.Good point, we will include them in the revised version.
Lines 883-884: What does the 60% refer to? Does this 2015 reference come from the literature review? Wasn't it intended for papers from 2023 to 2025? Could the authors please clarify this?This example appears to be overly focused on specific details of one NbS project rather than fitting within the paragraph's overall context.
This study is just another example of the success of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programmes. This will be made clearer in the revised version.
Furthermore, the programme has coordinated restoration activities, increasing the area of native forest in the targeted sub-watershed by 60%.
Line 1005: Perhaps “geopolitical conflicts” instead of “armed conflicts”?We will revise the section headers so that the theme sections already convey an overarching key message.
Lines 1223-1224: I am quite uncomfortable with the idea of mentioning co-ownership without properly discussing it. Presenting co-ownership as a solution requires a more in-depth conversation within a framework that thoughtfully addresses historical inequalities and avoids extractivism. I believe that the authors should expand on this topic, as readers would appreciate a more comprehensive and thoughtful discussion of the concept.Thank you for pointing out the opportunity to expand on the topic of co-ownership. We will add to this section accordingly:
“Without frameworks that address historically evolved inequalities and guarantee data sovereignty, informed consent, and co-ownership, integration efforts risk reproducing again extractive dynamics. As McCarter et al. (2014, p. 8) claim, the conservation of ILK "has, at its heart, issues of rights and power" and succeeding in preserving this local knowledge "is likely to be predicated on a high degree of control" by the communities. We, therefore, follow the authors that the mechanisms of negotiating these issues of rights and power ought to be a pivotal area for future research. The rise of transdisciplinary research may, in this sense, contribute to further address the questions of adequate co-ownership."
McCarter, J., M. C. Gavin, S. Baereleo, and M. Love. 2014. The challenges of maintaining indigenous ecological knowledge. Ecology and Society 19(3): 39. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06741-190339
Line 1267: Could authors please remind the readers what the “intertwined global crises” are that they are discussing here?Thank you for this clarification question.. These interconnected global crises are also known as the “polycrisis” and occur across various social, ecological, and economic domains, including, but not limited to biodiversity loss, pollution, or climate change (Lawrence et al., 2024; Søgaard Jørgensen et al., 2024;). We will adjust the manuscript accordingly and incorporate the following references for clarification.
Lawrence, M., Homer-Dixon, T., Janzwood, S., Rockstöm, J., Renn, O., & Donges, J. F. (2024). Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement. Global Sustainability, 7, e6. Cambridge Core. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2024.1
Søgaard Jørgensen, P., Jansen, R. E. V., Avila Ortega, D. I., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Donges, J. F., Österblom, H., Olsson, P., Nyström, M., Lade, S. J., Hahn, T., Folke, C., Peterson, G. D., & Crépin, A.-S. (2024). Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 379(1893), 20220261. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0261
Lines 1369-1370, and synthesis section overall: These terms differ from those used in the introduction, and the authors' overall aims presented should be connected and cohesive throughout the text. I strongly suggest that authors please try to better connect the synthesis with the terms, context, and goals presented in the introduction.We agree and will comprehensively revise the section and connect it more effectively to the revised introduction.
Line 1378-1380: I am not confident that this sentence directly and solely relates to section 3.9. Could the authors make a broader connection between the ideas exposed in the synthesis and all the sections that address the insights raised here? This exercise should include not only examples but also all relevant pieces that support those statements.
We agree that this statement deserves a broader basis. We will revise the paragraph to establish explicit links to the relevant sections and substantiate it with supporting literature, including Lalonde et al. (2024).
Lalonde, M., Drenkhan, F., Rau, P., Baiker, J. R., and Buytaert, W.: Scientific evidence of the hydrological impacts of nature-based solutions at the catchment scale, WIREs Water, 11, e1744, https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1744, 2024.
Line 1400: I believe that using the term "shareholders" would be more appropriate here. Alternatively, authors could explicitly mention both shareholders and stakeholders.
Good point — we'll replace 'stakeholders' with 'shareholders'.
Line 1440 and conclusion: As systems thinking and technology have been presented, albeit superficially, as solutions to the poly-crisis, I wonder whether there's room for more mentions and discussion of new technologies. Beyond remote sensing and camera traps, the authors could mention and further discuss other emerging AI- and cyberinfrastructure-enabled systems, such as digital twins, which are being created to support biosphere research and improve the measurement of Earth systems' poly-crisis and optimization of poly-solutions.We thank the reviewer for this stimulating suggestion. We agree that the discussion of technology-based solutions would benefit from greater depth. We will expand the relevant section by a few sentences to include and discuss the new approaches.
Lines 1464-1466: I truly miss the social aspects of this review and perspective manuscript here, and I strongly encourage the authors to reconsider this in the final sentence.
We agree. We will include the economic and political participation of society in this last sentence.
Technical comments:
Line 922: Please double-check the writing here: “both degraded lands and incomes, and strengthened social cohesion.”We will revise the sentence: ... improved both degraded lands, and incomes, as well as strengthened social cohesion.
Section 3.10. I believe the section title is incorrect here. The section on Sustainable Bioeconomy is 3.3, correct?Yes, that's correct — this is a mistake. The original title was 'Values of Nature for Sustainability Transformations'. However, we will revise the titles of all subsections.
Throughout the text, standardize poly-crisis and poly-solutions, with or without hyphens.We will harmonise it and select the version without hyphens.
Throughout the text, double-check concepts that are being rewritten in full, such as Nature-based Solutions (NbS).We will only use abbreviations in sections if they are explained within that same section.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3619-AC3
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AC3: 'Reply on RC2', Friedrich Bohn, 09 Mar 2026
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RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-3619', Anonymous Referee #4, 26 Jan 2026
I was asked to review particular sections aligning with my expertise, so I will focus my comments on sections 3.1, 3.2, and 3.5. My comments are therefore section specific. Overall, the paper is well motivated. My comments highlight areas where clarity and presentation could be strengthened within these sections.
Major Comment: Clarity and focus of Section 3.1
Section 3.1 would benefit from clearer articulation of its purpose and aims. In the Background (3.1.2), the section introduces the concept of ecosystem resilience, defined as the “capacity of a […] system to absorb disturbance, reorganize, maintain essentially the same functions and feedbacks over time and continue to develop along a particular trajectory.” This subsection emphasizes recovery from disturbance and additionally discusses the mechanisms that support it, including redundancy and functional diversity.
However, in the Challenges subsection (3.1.3), much of the discussion is dedicated to describing ecological harms associated with food production systems, without clearly linking these harms back to the resilience framework introduced earlier. As a result, it is difficult to understand how exactly this subsection advances the central concept of resilience as defined in the Background.
Similarly, while the Offering Solutions subsection (3.1.4) includes a brief discussion of recovery of a specific ecological function (soil health), the section is largely devoted to outlining the general merits of agroecology practices. The connection between these practices and explicit claims about absorbing or recovering from any particular disturbance is not consistently made. If the intention of Section 3.1.4 is to advocate for agroecological systems as inherently more resilient, the Section would be improved by stating this more explicitly at the outset and linking it more concretely to the resilience framework introduced in the Background.
In addition, some aspects of Figure 2 are unclear. The figure appears to make a specific claim about post-disturbance recovery trajectories across three types of ecosystems, showing improved recovery under agroforestry and restoration relative to ecosystems without intervention. However, no source is provided to support this assumption. It’s unclear what type of ecosystem is being represented, what type of disturbance is being considered, under what conditions agroforestry or intervention improve recovery from disturbance, and whether this is assumed to be a general relationship across ecosystems. Finally, there is a pink line in the figure which does not seem to correspond to any variable, and I am uncertain why this was included.
Discussing resilience in this manuscript is valuable, but this section could be much improved by including some of the specificity that was called for in the Key take aways (3.1.1): specifically clarifying “resilience of what” systems and “to what” disturbances, and grounding these claims in concrete ecosystem or agroecosystem examples supported by appropriate literature. Doing so would greatly improve the section and manuscript.
Minor Comment (Section 3.2): Framing and emphasis
Section 3.2 is generally strong. The authors provide a clear and effective introduction to the background and importance of dryland ecosystems, and Figure 3 nicely frames the section through an adaptation of the “Earth Science to Action” feedback cycle which links research priorities and end users. The discussion of both the current state and emerging frontiers of dryland science is well addressed, and the inclusion of socioecological considerations and dryland communities is a strength.
One area for improvement is in the Offering Solutions subsection (3.2.1). This subsection primarily outlines emerging research priorities for dryland ecosystems, but places comparatively less emphasis on how these priorities translate into engagement with communities and land managers, or how they might “provide decision-makers with actionable solutions,” as stated in the abstract. Strengthening this connection, particularly in light of the Earth Science to Action framework, would improve this section’s alignment with the broader goals of the manuscript.
Minor Comment (Section 3.5):
This section effectively introduces the growing global public health challenges associated with biodiversity loss and climate change. Framing the integration of biodiversity monitoring within a global health context is a valuable contribution. In subsection 3.5.4, the manuscript introduces the One Health approach. At present, however, the description is relatively brief (e.g., line 734), and the specifics of what the approach entails are not made clear. Subsequent mentions of the One Health approach (e.g., line 745) are additionally unclear in what the specifics of the approach are. Since this is one of the key points and a substantial proportion of the 'Offering Solutions' subsection is dedicated to discussing this approach, readers of section 3.5 would benefit from a brief yet more detailed description of the specifics of this framework.
Major comment: Duplicate section titles
Sections 3.3 and 3.10 are both titled “Sustainable Bioeconomy.” It is unclear whether this duplication is intentional or a mistake. As these are distinct sections with similar internal structure, it seems that they should be differentiated.
Minor comments: Typographical and spelling errors
I noticed several minor spelling and typographical errors throughout. These should be corrected in revision.
For example, line 130: “Section 3.4 analysis the multiple benefits…” should be corrected to “analyzes”.
Line 360: “globaldatasets” should be “global datasets”. In addition, line 360 appears to be an incomplete sentence: “However, in arid regions, globaldatasets (e.g. precipitation, Markonis et al., 2024), land surface models (MacBean et al., 2021), and machine learning products (e.g., FLUXCOM, Markonis et al., 2024; Nelson et al., 2024).”.
Line 693: Should include a space between “5%” and the reference, as was done earlier in the sentence.
Line 734: includes inconsistent capitalization of One Health and should include an additional article “the” in “Nature-based strategies and [the] One [H]ealth approach”
There is also inconsistent formatting present. Section headers in 3.1 do not include a period at the end of the numbering (e.g., “3.1.1”), whereas headers in Section 3.2 include a final period (e.g., “3.2.1.”).
Overall, this manuscript addresses important and timely topics, and its aim to synthesize recent advances in biosphere research within a polycrisis framework to inspire future research and inform decision-makers is well motivated. Clarifying and strengthening the issues noted above would improve its impact.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3619-RC3 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC3', Friedrich Bohn, 09 Mar 2026
I was asked to review particular sections aligning with my expertise, so I will focus my comments on sections 3.1, 3.2, and 3.5. My comments are therefore section specific. Overall, the paper is well motivated. My comments highlight areas where clarity and presentation could be strengthened within these sections.
Thank you very much for your constructive and valuable review.
Major Comment: Clarity and focus of Section 3.1
Section 3.1 would benefit from clearer articulation of its purpose and aims. In the Background (3.1.2), the section introduces the concept of ecosystem resilience, defined as the “capacity of a […] system to absorb disturbance, reorganize, maintain essentially the same functions and feedbacks over time and continue to develop along a particular trajectory.” This subsection emphasizes recovery from disturbance and additionally discusses the mechanisms that support it, including redundancy and functional diversity.
However, in the Challenges subsection (3.1.3), much of the discussion is dedicated to describing ecological harms associated with food production systems, without clearly linking these harms back to the resilience framework introduced earlier. As a result, it is difficult to understand how exactly this subsection advances the central concept of resilience as defined in the Background.Thank you for pointing out this gap in clarity. We will revise the subsection on challenges to better exemplify where and how in the agricultural/food system ecosystem resilience is not only a general, nice-to-have aim but a means to the end of keeping food systems resilient.
Similarly, while the Offering Solutions subsection (3.1.4) includes a brief discussion of recovery of a specific ecological function (soil health), the section is largely devoted to outlining the general merits of agroecology practices. The connection between these practices and explicit claims about absorbing or recovering from any particular disturbance is not consistently made. If the intention of Section 3.1.4 is to advocate for agroecological systems as inherently more resilient, the Section would be improved by stating this more explicitly at the outset and linking it more concretely to the resilience framework introduced in the Background.We agree very much with your suggestion and will revise the section accordingly.
In addition, some aspects of Figure 2 are unclear. The figure appears to make a specific claim about post-disturbance recovery trajectories across three types of ecosystems, showing improved recovery under agroforestry and restoration relative to ecosystems without intervention. However, no source is provided to support this assumption. It’s unclear what type of ecosystem is being represented, what type of disturbance is being considered, under what conditions agroforestry or intervention improve recovery from disturbance, and whether this is assumed to be a general relationship across ecosystems. Finally, there is a pink line in the figure which does not seem to correspond to any variable, and I am uncertain why this was included.We appreciate your comments. We agree that the figure caption needs to be greatly improved by providing more information about the conceptual figure that was created. This conceptual figure was created by the authors to illustrate how the resilience of a terrestrial ecosystem after degradation (in general) can differ depending on the type of intervention performed. The idea is not to go into specifics about types of agroforestry or restoration, but only to show that a system's resilience to disturbances can be greater when it undergoes sustainable interventions.
Discussing resilience in this manuscript is valuable, but this section could be much improved by including some of the specificity that was called for in the Key take aways (3.1.1): specifically clarifying “resilience of what” systems and “to what” disturbances, and grounding these claims in concrete ecosystem or agroecosystem examples supported by appropriate literature. Doing so would greatly improve the section and manuscript.Thank you for your supporting and constructive comments to link the subsections more clearly among each other!
Minor Comment (Section 3.2): Framing and emphasis
Section 3.2 is generally strong. The authors provide a clear and effective introduction to the background and importance of dryland ecosystems, and Figure 3 nicely frames the section through an adaptation of the “Earth Science to Action” feedback cycle which links research priorities and end users. The discussion of both the current state and emerging frontiers of dryland science is well addressed, and the inclusion of socioecological considerations and dryland communities is a strength.Thank you very much for this kind appreciation of our work.
One area for improvement is in the Offering Solutions subsection (3.2.1). This subsection primarily outlines emerging research priorities for dryland ecosystems, but places comparatively less emphasis on how these priorities translate into engagement with communities and land managers, or how they might “provide decision-makers with actionable solutions,” as stated in the abstract. Strengthening this connection, particularly in light of the Earth Science to Action framework, would improve this section’s alignment with the broader goals of the manuscript.We appreciate your constructive feedback. By considering another reviewer’s comments, we have revised the final paragraph of the solution session to now better elaborate the linkage with dryland communities, corresponding to the Earth Science to Action framework shown by the Figure 3:
"The integrated dataset and improved models will help deliver more effective land management and policy-making decisions as restoration, protection, and regeneration requires large investment. For example, observations in US drylands indicated significant vegetation changes over the past 30 years (Kleinhesselink et al., 2023), supporting the application of Sagebrush Conservation Design that aims to conserve drylands by prioritizing the protection and expansion of intact areas (Doherty et al. 2022). Nevertheless, it is critical to note that community engagement is necessary for local success (Moreno-Casasola, 2022) and initiatives' long-term sustainability (Fox & Cundill, 2018). Experience from previous large-scale interventions that have led to unintended trade-offs, particularly when carbon sequestration targets are pursued without sufficient consideration of local hydrological constraints (Fu et al. 2025). To address this, it is critical to sustain long-term knowledge platforms such as the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT), which have been collecting documented sustainable land management practices for over three decades, integrating technical designs, socioeconomic contexts, and participatory tools that incorporate local experience into planning and evaluation. There is growing evidence that restoration measures, especially large-scale tree planting, are more socio-economically sustainable when embedded in existing land use practices rather than implemented as standalone measures (Di Sacco et al. 2021). Together, improved observation capacities and accumulated experiential knowledge form the basis for the development of strategies for restoring drylands."
Di Sacco, A., Hardwick, K. A., Blakesley, D., Brancalion, P. H., Breman, E., Cecilio Rebola, L., ... & Antonelli, A. (2021). Ten golden rules for reforestation to optimize carbon sequestration, biodiversity recovery and livelihood benefits. Global Change Biology, 27(7), 1328-1348. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15498
Fu, F., Wang, S., Wu, X., Chen, S., Tan, Z., Ye, C., & Grünzweig, J. M. (2025). Integrating hydrological impacts for cost-effective dryland ecological restoration. Communications Earth & Environment, 6(1), 667. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02649-8
Minor Comment (Section 3.5):
This section effectively introduces the growing global public health challenges associated with biodiversity loss and climate change. Framing the integration of biodiversity monitoring within a global health context is a valuable contribution. In subsection 3.5.4, the manuscript introduces the One Health approach. At present, however, the description is relatively brief (e.g., line 734), and the specifics of what the approach entails are not made clear. Subsequent mentions of the One Health approach (e.g., line 745) are additionally unclear in what the specifics of the approach are. Since this is one of the key points and a substantial proportion of the 'Offering Solutions' subsection is dedicated to discussing this approach, readers of section 3.5 would benefit from a brief yet more detailed description of the specifics of this framework.Thank you very much, we will revise the specified sections accordingly.
"Nature-based strategies and One Health approach which connects human, animal, and ecosystem health could offer practical solutions for mitigating associated risks. Integrating biodiversity data and open-access repositories into disease surveillance is essential for tracking pathogen sources, monitoring vector populations, and predicting outbreak risks more accurately (Astorga et al., 2023). Standardized data repositories play a crucial role in avoiding data fragmentation by consolidating biodiversity, pathogen, and host information into interoperable platforms (Pfenning-Butterworth et al., 2024). The formal recognition of biodiversity databases as essential infrastructure would enhance both research and decision-making processes and aligns with the requirements of the International Health Regulations (IHR), which call for robust, cross-sectoral surveillance systems capable of early detection and coordinated response to public health threats (WHO, 2023). These resources should encompass a broader range of pathogen data and be accessible across various disciplines (Kim et al., 2024). Such measures would facilitate the development of more accurate predictive models, early warning systems, and coordinated responses (Ogwu & Izah, 2025).
Implementing the One Health approach provides a more comprehensive framework for disease monitoring and control by linking human, animal, and environmental health sectors (Figure 4). One Health is an integrated, unifying framework that seeks to optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems by promoting coordinated action across sectors and disciplines, including public health, veterinary medicine, wildlife and environmental agencies, and other relevant stakeholders (WHO, 2025). It emphasizes joint risk assessment, shared data and information systems, harmonized surveillance and laboratory networks, and coordinated preparedness and response mechanisms for zoonotic diseases and other emerging threats (Zhou and Zheng, 2024). This approach recognizes the interdependence between people, domestic and wild animals, plants, and ecosystems, and uses these connections to design more effective prevention, detection, and control strategies (Prata et al. 2022
One Health improves early detection and response to disease threats (Erkyihun & Alemayehu, 2022), while also strengthening surveillance and enabling targeted interventions, particularly in addressing antimicrobial resistance (Das et al., 2024). "In the context of antimicrobial resistance, One Health frameworks support stewardship across the entire antimicrobial lifecycle, from innovation and use to waste management across human, animal, plant, and environmental sectors, thereby helping to preserve antimicrobial efficacy and mitigate health and ecological impacts.
"The importance of this integrated approach is further underscored by the Quadripartite agreement which formalizes global collaboration and commitment to advancing One Health at all levels (WHO, 2022), bringing together Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH)and the World Health Organization (WHO) to support countries in operationalizing integrated surveillance, information sharing, and coordinated response capacities."
Major comment: Duplicate section titles
Sections 3.3 and 3.10 are both titled “Sustainable Bioeconomy.” It is unclear whether this duplication is intentional or a mistake. As these are distinct sections with similar internal structure, it seems that they should be differentiated.We are very sorry — this was a mistake. The original title of section 3.10 should be 'Values of nature for sustainability transformations'. However, we will revise the section headers so that the sections convey an overarching key message.
Minor comments: Typographical and spelling errors
I noticed several minor spelling and typographical errors throughout. These should be corrected in revision.
Thanks for highlighting these typographical and spelling errors. We will correct all of them as you suggested.
For example, line 130: “Section 3.4 analysis the multiple benefits…” should be corrected to “analyzes”.
Thank you very much, we will revise the sentence accordingly.Line 360: “globaldatasets” should be “global datasets”. In addition, line 360 appears to be an incomplete sentence: “However, in arid regions, globaldatasets (e.g. precipitation, Markonis et al., 2024), land surface models (MacBean et al., 2021), and machine learning products (e.g., FLUXCOM, Markonis et al., 2024; Nelson et al., 2024).”.
Thank you very much, we will revise the sentence.
Line 693: Should include a space between “5%” and the reference, as was done earlier in the sentence.Thank you, we will revise the sentence accordingly.
Line 734: includes inconsistent capitalization of One Health and should include an additional article “the” in “Nature-based strategies and [the] One [H]ealth approach”Thank you very much, we will capitalize on One Health where necessary.
There is also inconsistent formatting present. Section headers in 3.1 do not include a period at the end of the numbering (e.g., “3.1.1”), whereas headers in Section 3.2 include a final period (e.g., “3.2.1.”).Thanks for mentioning this. We will remove the period at the end of the numbering.
Overall, this manuscript addresses important and timely topics, and its aim to synthesize recent advances in biosphere research within a polycrisis framework to inspire future research and inform decision-makers is well motivated. Clarifying and strengthening the issues noted above would improve its impact.Thank you very much for your motivating final statement. We hope to deliver a strengthened manuscript after revision that addresses all the points you raised. Thank you again for your time and feedback.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3619-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on RC3', Friedrich Bohn, 09 Mar 2026
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Generally, I struggled to understand the key points being made in this manuscript. I understand that this is meant to be the second publication in a series with the first publication having come out in May 2025, but it took me a long time to understand this from the manuscript itself. There are a few concerns I have related to this format that I have outlined below. Overall, the intent of this publication seems to be a general review of recent topics of importance within the field of biogeosciences. While I have no issues with this general idea and think it’s a valid scientific endeavor, I do have issues with how this manuscript approaches this task.
The conclusions to many of the sections are extremely vague and do not show new insights or articulate compiled insights well. The language used throughout is overly vague, and the talking points jumped around within sections. For example, the resilience section focuses its key points on ecosystem resilience, but the concluding few paragraphs focus exclusively on improvements to agroecology, which felt like a large jump in logic and topic to me. There are similar jumps in topic/content throughout the manuscript.
The methods are incomplete and poorly described. There are formatting issues (no indentations for new paragraphs, certain words randomly bolded in one section) that were likely copy and paste errors from elsewhere. In particular, the formatting and bolded words in the concluding Synthesis section (starting midsection on line 1398 and ending on line 1427) is extremely similar to ChatGPT output. Although I recognize the authors note their use of AI for grammar and writing assistance, such use should be heavily scrutinized and reformatted before inclusion in this manuscript. Some figures (Figures 2-3) are also not referenced in the text.
The topic of the paper and entire introductory paragraph are nearly identical to the Bohn paper published in May 2025. I am skeptical of how this manuscript was produced, given that the previously published Bohn paper is intended to also be a review of recent biosphere research with interdisciplinary connections. My concern for this is not topical, but how similar the writing itself is between the papers. Below I have highlighted some comparisons between the papers where the writing borders on self-plagiarism:
This manuscript, abstract, line 70: “This review summarises recent advances in biosphere research, focusing on ten topics selected for their thematic relevance to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, socio-economic interactions and anthropogenic threats to the biosphere. An interdisciplinary expert panel identified these themes from a public survey, based on scientific relevance and evidence.” Compare to Bohn et al., 2025 abstract: “This review of recent advances in biosphere research aims to provide information on eight selected themes related to changes in biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, social and economic interactions with ecosystems, and the impacts of climate change on the biosphere. An interdisciplinary panel of experts selected these eight themes from a public survey based on relevance and scientific evidence that have the potential to guide future actions as well as inspire future research questions.”
This manuscript, introduction , line 93 “There is growing recognition from governments and businesses, but also NGOs, CBOs and other initiatives, that our societies need to fully account for human impacts on nature and balance our demands for renewing and non-renewing resources (P. Dasgupta & Treasury, 2022; TNFD, 2023). A whole-of-society perspective is needed, as scholars also highlight that fair and just transformations are crucial to reach the global sustainability goals for climate and biodiversity in the areas of food supply, energy, and material systems, thus ensuring human well-being in the long term (Folke et al., 2021; Griggs et al., 2013; Jiménez-Aceituno et al., 2025; Leach et al., 2018; A. Martin et al., 2020; McDermott et al., 2023; Obura et al., 2023; Pickering et al., 2022; Schlesier et al., 2024).” Compare to Bohn et al., 2025 introduction: “There is growing recognition from governments and businesses that our economies need to take full account of the impacts on nature and balance our demands of resources (Dasgupta and Treasury, 2022; TNFD, 2023). A whole-of-society perspective is needed, as scholars also highlight that fair and just transformations are crucial to reach the global sustainability goals for climate and biodiversity in the areas of food supply, energy, and material systems, thus ensuring human well-being in the long term (Griggs et al., 2013; Leach et al., 2018; Martin et al., 2020; Folke et al., 2021; Pickering et al., 2022; Obura et al., 2023; McDermott et al., 2023; Schlesier et al., 2024).”
This manuscript, abstract, line 111: “Alongside these special reports, numerous scientists have published summaries on a variety of subjects - sometimes under the heading 'Scientists' Warning' (e.g. Fernández-Llamazares et al., 2021; Harvey et al., 2023; C. C. Pereira et al., 2024; Sachs et al., 2025) or within the annual '10 New Insights in Climate Science' series (e.g. Bustamante et al., 2023; M. A. Martin et al., 2022; Schaeffer et al., 2025). The second synthesis in the Current Perspectives on Biosphere Research series reviews the latest policy-relevant, peer-reviewed, biosphere-related research findings, with the aim to inform political and economic decision-making in the years ahead (see also Bohn et al., 2025). This international, interdisciplinary effort complements existing assessments and bridge the gap until the next major assessment reports are published. We hope it will inspire scientists to pursue interdisciplinary questions and holistic solutions to address the polycrisis of the Earth system.” Compare to Bohn et al., 2025 abstract: “In addition to these special reports, many scientists have published summaries on a wide range of topics under the heading “Scientists' Warning” (e.g. Cavicchioli et al., 2019; Pyšek et al., 2020; Ripple et al., 2020)… Due to their specific focus on certain topics and indicators, these reports sometimes lack the interdisciplinary perspective that can be observed in the above-mentioned special reports of IPCC and IPBES. The “10 New Insights in Climate Science” reports address many of the challenges mentioned above, focusing on new findings from recent climate-related research. They are published annually and contain contributions from various disciplines (e.g. Martin et al., 2022; Bustamante et al., 2023). This series should be complemented by similar reports from other research areas related to the Earth system crisis. Given the lack of such an integrative, annually published report focused on issues related to the biosphere, this publication summarizes recent advances in this field of research by addressing biosphere-related challenges and bridging the time between the comprehensive assessment reports of IPCC and IPBES.”
This manuscript, abstract, line 120: “We present this year ten themes that are gaining traction in the scientific community with recent and significant findings from biosphere research, based predominantly on peer-reviewed literature published since January 2023. Each theme summarizes background information and the latest scientific advances, identifies challenges and offers strategies for maintaining thriving ecosystems or enhancing degraded ecosystems and their diverse contributions to human society. For each theme, we emphasize the synergies, trade-offs, and implications for other related themes in this synthesis. This contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of processes in the biosphere, their mutual dependencies with more strategic human decisions, and to stimulate future research questions.” Compare to Bohn et al., 2025 abstract: “Here, we present eight themes with recent and significant findings from biosphere research, based predominantly from peer-reviewed literature published since January 2022. Our themes present background information as well as challenges and offer strategies for maintaining vivid ecosystems or enhancing degraded ecosystems and the services they provide to human society. In addition, these themes are gaining traction in the scientific community and stimulate future research questions. For each theme, the key findings are presented along with an emphasis on the links and implications for related themes, which contributes to a comprehensive understanding of processes in the biosphere and their interactions with human systems.”
I see that in the May 2025 Bohn et al. paper, it states “This first synthesis and future syntheses in the series Current perspectives on biosphere research are intended to support decision-making processes in the coming years by reporting and summarizing selected recent findings from biosphere research, thus supplementing existing reports and bridging the gap until the next comprehensive assessment reports are published.” However, it is not clear that this new manuscript is a continuation of this series, or how the respective paper topics were grouped the way they are.
Additionally, the methods section for the manuscript does not stand by itself. For me to fully understand the methods used, I had to go back to the May Bohn et al. 2025 paper. From that paper, I had to go back to the Martin et al. 2022 paper. So, in order to find a full description of the methods used, I had to go back two papers, even though the methods were just a simple survey of scientists. It is also not clear whether the list of topics used for this manuscript came from the same survey used for the May Bohn et al. 2025 paper or not. If so, why are two papers being written for the same survey? If it was a different survey, why were they conducted so close together? I also could not find Annex A, so I could compare the methods used for the two papers.
I suggest the authors present the statistics of the papers being referred to for this synthesis instead of only showing the demographic makeup of the authors of this paper. The reason I say this, is that ensuring a geopolitically diverse group of authors does not necessarily ensure that the information being sourced is not geopolitically biased to a certain region or entirely representative of global concerns. The inclusion of both sets of statistics would make for a more powerful claim to representation. Additionally, it is apparent there is supposed to be one of these papers each year (although it is unclear why one is summarizing papers from 2022-2025 and the other is summarizing papers from 2023-2025). Because this is really not one paper, but a proposed series of papers, I think it is especially important for there to be statistics on the papers being summarized. Otherwise, this paper is not really a synthesis of important topics written about over the past few years, but a synthesis of what the surveyed authors perceive to be the most important during the time period the paper is being written. For example, how many papers were published each year from 2023-2025 on the topics ‘resilience’, ‘drylands’, etc? Did the topics this paper focused on increase in mentions over the past few years? Were the topics chosen from any metric other than just the opinions from a set of scientists, which are subject to specialization bias? Given the concept for the proposed series, the methods need to be more data-based for the chosen focuses to be justified. Otherwise, this series is more of an opinion piece than a true literature-driven review or synthesis.
The section for each theme begins with key takeaways (for example, line 169, line 297, etc), which are formatted as bullet point notes. I think the casual formatting of this is not useful and harder to understand than if this section was summarized in a paragraph structure. I focused mostly on the dryland section, because that represents my expertise more than the other sections. I found the background subsection under the drylands topic well-written and informative. This was the best section I read from this paper. Some more notes below.
Line 359: The sentence starting on this line is incomplete.
Line 365: The line “Mechanisms like nighttime CO₂ absorption due to cooling and carbonate precipitation, as well as CO₂ transport from fast soil air replacement, are important (Kim et al., 2024; Moya et al., 2019).” is an example of some of the vagueness I was referring to. Why is this important? How does this fit in with the sentence before and after?
Line 367: The line “The management and mitigation of anthropogenic influences on dryland ecosystems must account for the potential creation of more problems than solutions” does not make sense to me.
Line 370: The statement “Many dryland ecology programs lack knowledge of local communities and Indigenous peoples, from resources rights to current socio-economic relationships, to co-create and share knowledge, as well as to support diverse capacity.” needs a citation.
Line 371-374: The statement about the Bedouins is informative, but fails to connect to the rest of the paragraph. How does this fact about the Bedouins tie in with problems in the policies dryland management? How does Lake Nasser tie into this? What policies specifically led to its creation, and why did that lead to a change in Bedouins settlement patterns?
Line 374-377: The paragraph continues to list one-liner concerns in dryland ecosystems without connecting them to each other or the paragraph’s beginning sentence.
Section 3.2.1. Offering solutions: The first paragraph of this subsection talks about the benefits of remote sensing, but it is unclear how these benefits are specifically solutions to the challenges introduced in the previous section. How does this connect to the socio-economic dimensions highlighted? There are many people who have long specialized on using remote sensing in drylands. What solutions are being suggested here that are different than “we should use remote sensing to study drylands”? Later in the section, there is more mentions of the need to connect with dryland communities, but solutions are still not offered. The dryland sections overall seems like a repetition of: “Drylands are important but hard to quantify. We can use well-known tools to study them. We need to connect with dryland communities.” However the section fails to mention specific case studies of dryland community engagement (of which many exist) or move past the problems to describe “polysolutions”.
Each section seems to have similar comprehension issues, where each sentence does not logically connect to the sentence before or after. It gives the impression that this paper was once all bullet points from a brainstorming session, but then was not properly synthesized into a readable manuscript.
Below I have highlighted what I find interesting about the manuscript, and suggest constructive revisions:
I did find the introduction of the idea of “polysolutions” to be a fascinating framework, and a great contribution to the field if implemented appropriately. In particular, I see a lot of potential in the framework described by the figure at the end of the synthesis sections. However, the definition of polysolutions is not given until the end of the paper. I think this manuscript would benefit from a complete restructuring where the idea of polycrises and polysolutions are defined and introduced in the beginning, so that each section and example field could be tied back to the “polysolution” thesis. I think a restructuring of the topics, adding specificity to each section (e.g., what policies specifically are polysolutions and why), and clear syntheses that tie back to the “polysolution” idea could lead this to being publishable.
I also think there needs to be a clearer definition of what time periods are being covered for each paper in this series (e.g., why the May Bohn 2025 paper covers 2022-2025 and this manuscript covers 2023-2025). The 3 year overlap does not make sense, and the fact that these are separate reviews being submitted separately is not justified.