Through the looking glass: attempting to predict future opportunities and challenges in experimental biology

Abstract

To celebrate its centenary year, Journal of Experimental Biology (JEB) commissioned a collection of articles examining the past, present and future of experimental biology. This Commentary closes the collection by considering the important research opportunities and challenges that await us in the future. We expect that researchers will harness the power of technological advances, such as ‘-omics’ and gene editing, to probe resistance and resilience to environmental change as well as other organismal responses. The capacity to handle large data sets will allow high-resolution data to be collected for individual animals and to understand population, species and community responses. The availability of large data sets will also place greater emphasis on approaches such as modeling and simulations. Finally, the increasing sophistication of biologgers will allow more comprehensive data to be collected for individual animals in the wild. Collectively, these approaches will provide an unprecedented understanding of ‘how animals work’ as well as keys to safeguarding animals at a time when anthropogenic activities are degrading the natural environment.

The continuing evolution of JEB

“…With the Centenary Articles in mind, and while putting together their Commentary article on future challenges and opportunities for the field (Gilmour et al, 2023), the editors reviewed the aims and scope of the journal and realised changes need to be made to reflect the way that the field has changed direction and evolved over the past decade. As shown in Kathryn Knight's article plotting the timeline of the journal (Knight, 2023b), an evolving scope has been a natural progression throughout JEB's history, and this is a continuation of that journey.…”

“…2023 was a massive year for Journal of Experimental Biology (JEB) as we marked a century of publishing outstanding research in comparative physiology and biomechanics (Franklin, 2023). We celebrated and reflected upon the journal's rich history (Hankins and Rutledge, 2023;Knight, 2023a,b) and looked to the future of our discipline by considering the research opportunities that await us (Gilmour et al, 2023). It is a story of JEB's evolution that continues today.…”