The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) introduced a new framework for analyzing social-ecological systems that has had wide influence in the policy and scientific communities. Studies after the MA are taking up new challenges in the basic science needed to assess, project, and manage flows of ecosystem services and effects on human well-being. Yet, our ability to draw general conclusions remains limited by focus on discipline-bound sectors of the full social-ecological system. At the same time, some polices and practices intended to improve ecosystem services and human well-being are based on untested assumptions and sparse information. The people who are affected and those who provide resources are increasingly asking for evidence that interventions improve ecosystem services and human well-being. New research is needed that considers the full ensemble of processes and feedbacks, for a range of biophysical and social systems, to better understand and manage the dynamics of the relationship between humans and the ecosystems on which they rely. Such research will expand the capacity to address fundamental questions about complex socialecological systems while evaluating assumptions of policies and practices intended to advance human well-being through improved ecosystem services.
Planning and decision-making can be improved by access to reliable forecasts of ecosystem state, ecosystem services, and natural capital. Availability of new data sets, together with progress in computation and statistics, will increase our ability to forecast ecosystem change. An agenda that would lead toward a capacity to produce, evaluate, and communicate forecasts of critical ecosystem services requires a process that engages scientists and decision-makers. Interdisciplinary linkages are necessary because of the climate and societal controls on ecosystems, the feedbacks involving social change, and the decision-making relevance of forecasts.
Hotspots of biodiversity-areas particularly rich in species, rare species, threatened species, or some combination of these attributes-are increasingly being delineated to help set priorities for conservation. Only recently have we begun to test key assumptions that determine how useful a hotspot approach can be for conservation planning. The evidence suggests that although at large geographic scales hotspots do provide useful information for conservation planning, at smaller scales their value may be more limited.
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