This article introduces the concept of animals’ atmospheres, as a contribution to work in animal and atmospheric geographies. It defines the concept and identifies the key factors that shape an animals’ atmosphere. These offer a framework for future comparative research. The second section focuses on methodological and epistemic challenges of knowing and representing animal atmospheres. The third section examines engineering of animals’ atmospheres, in context of the biopolitics of managing animal life in the Anthropocene. In conclusion, the article highlights its contributions. Illustrations are drawn from the atmospheres of dogs and wolves.

The recent renaissance within animal geography has tended to focus on the spatial orderings of animals by humans, rather than on the lived geographies and experiences of animals themselves. We suggest that one reason for this imbalance is methodological -a persistent commitment to human-centred methods somewhat at odds with the more-than-human aspirations of the sub-discipline. In this paper we review and critically assess methodological developments in three areas that we consider to be especially significant for developing animals' geographies: (i) techniques for tracking the spatialities of animal culture; (ii) scientific and artistic engagements in inter-species communication; and (iii) geographic tools afforded by genetic analyses. In conclusion, we reflect on the promise and some of the challenges to developing these methods within (what is still largely known as) human geography.

Conservation planners need reliable information on spatial patterns of biodiversity. However, existing data sets are skewed because some ecosystems, taxa, and locations are underrepresented. We determined how many articles have been published in recent decades on the biodiversity of different countries and their constituent provinces. We searched the Web of Science catalogues Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for biodiversity‐related articles published from 1993 to 2016 that included country and province names. We combined data on research publication frequency with other provincial‐scale factors hypothesized to affect the likelihood of research activity (i.e., economic development, human presence, infrastructure, and remoteness). Areas that appeared understudied relative to the biodiversity expected based on site climate likely have been inaccessible to researchers for reasons, notably armed conflict. Geographic publication bias is of most concern in the most remote areas of sub‐Saharan Africa and South America. Our provincial‐scale model may help compensate for publication biases in conservation planning by revealing the spatial extent of research needs and the low cost of redoing this analysis annually.

This paper draws together animal and mobility studies to develop the concept of animals’ mobilities. It identifies the parallel intellectual interests in these fields that provide the intellectual foundations for this synthesis, in mobility (over movement), affect, relational space, and ordering practices. It explores what configures an animal’s mobility, knowledge practices for researching and evoking animals’ mobilities, and how animals’ mobilities are governed. The conclusion highlights what these fields gain from this synthesis, and identifies the empirical, political and conceptual contributions that this concept makes to geographical research. The argument is illustrated with examples of large, terrestrial mammals, especially bears.

The human microbiome is an important emergent area of cross, multi and transdisciplinary study. The complexity of this topic leads to conflicting narratives and regulatory challenges. It raises questions about the benefits of its commercialisation and drives debates about alternative models for engaging with its publics, patients and other potential beneficiaries. The social sciences and the humanities have begun to explore the microbiome as an object of empirical study and as an opportunity for theoretical innovation. They can play an important role in facilitating the development of research that is socially relevant, that incorporates cultural norms and expectations around microbes and that investigates how social and biological lives intersect. This is a propitious moment to establish lines of collaboration in the study of the microbiome that incorporate the concerns and capabilities of the social sciences and the humanities together with those of the natural sciences and relevant stakeholders outside academia. This paper presents an agenda for the engagement of the social sciences with microbiome research and its implications for public policy and social change. Our methods were informed by existing multidisciplinary science-policy agenda-setting exercises. We recruited 36 academics and stakeholders and asked them to produce a list of important questions about the microbiome that were in need of further social science research. We refined this initial list into an agenda of 32 questions and organised them into eight themes that both complement and extend existing research trajectories. This agenda was further developed through a structured workshop where 21 of our participants refined the agenda and reflected on the challenges and the limitations of the exercise itself. The agenda identifies the need for research that addresses the implications of the human microbiome for human health, public health, public and private sector research and notions of self and identity. It also suggests new lines of research sensitive to the complexity and heterogeneity of human–microbiome relations, and how these intersect with questions of environmental governance, social and spatial inequality and public engagement with science.