Identifying and addressing the anthropogenic drivers of global change in the North Sea: a systematic map

BackgroundAnthropogenic pressures on marine ecosystems have increased over the last 75 years and are expected to intensify in the future with potentially dramatic cascading consequences for human societies. It is therefore crucial to rebuild marine life-support systems and aim for future healthy ecosystems. Nowadays, there is a reasonable understanding of the impacts of human pressure on marine ecosystems; but no studies have drawn an integrative retrospective analysis of the marine research on the topic. A systematic consolidation of the literature is therefore needed to clearly describe the scientific knowledge clusters and gaps as well as to promote a new era of integrative marine science and management. We focus on the five direct anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity loss defined by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES): (1) climate change; (2) direct exploitation; (3) pollution; (4) biological invasions; and (5) sea-use change. Our systematic map’s regional focus lies on the North Sea, which is among the most impacted marine ecosystems around the globe. The goal of the present study is to produce the first comprehensive overview of how marine research on anthropogenic drivers in the North Sea has grown and changed over the past 75 years. Ultimately, this systematic map will highlight the most urgent challenges facing the North Sea research domain.MethodsThe search will be restricted to peer-reviewed articles, reviews, meta-analyses, book chapters, book reviews, proceeding papers and grey literature using the most relevant search engines for literature published between 1945 and 2020. All authors will participate in the adjustment of the search in order to consider all relevant studies analyzing the effect of the direct anthropogenic drivers on the North Sea marine ecosystem. The references will be screened for relevance according to a predefined set of eligibility/ineligibility criteria by a pool of six trained reviewers. At stage one, each abstract and title will be independently screened by two reviewers. At stage two, potentially relevant references will be screened in full text by two independent reviewers. Subsequently, we will extract a suite of descriptive meta-data and basic information of the relevant references using the SysRev platform. The systematic map database composed will provide the foundation for an interactive geographical evidence map. Moreover, we will summarize our findings with cross-validation plots, heat maps, descriptive statistics, and a publicly available narrative synthesis. The aim of our visualization tools is to ensure that our findings are easily understandable by a broad audience.

Culturally diverse expert teams have yet to bring comprehensive linguistic diversity to intergovernmental ecosystem assessments

Identifying uncertainties in scenarios and models of socio-ecological systems in support of decision-making

Invasive alien species and planetary and global health policy

Although invasive alien species have long been recognized as a major threat to nature and people, until now there has been no comprehensive global review of the status, trends, drivers, impacts, management and governance challenges of biological invasions. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Thematic Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and Their Control (hereafter 'IPBES invasive alien species assessment') drew on more than 13,000 scientific publications and reports in 15 languages as well as Indigenous and local knowledge on all taxa, ecosystems and regions across the globe. Therefore, it provides unequivocal evidence of the major and growing threat of invasive alien species alongside ambitious but realistic approaches to manage biological invasions. The extent of the threat and impacts has been recognized by the 143 member states of IPBES who approved the summary for policymakers of this assessment. Here, the authors of the IPBES assessment outline the main findings of the IPBES invasive alien species assessment and highlight the urgency to act now.

Institutionalising reflexivity? Transformative learning and the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

In 2013, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) agreed to carry out a regional assessment for Africa. Since then, roughly 100 authors have been working to deliver, in 2018, a document that not only synthesises existing knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services for the African region but to distil from it knowledge that is relevant, credible, and legitimate for both societal and scientific practise. This requires, firstly, to carefully constituting the group of authors and, secondly, to design an assessment process that allows for deriving at an integrated perspective amongst these experts. Such a joint process of knowledge production that encompasses both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration can be framed as co-creation. In this contribution, we analyse whether the IPBES African assessment accounts for these two prerequisites for an effective assessment process. Our particular interest lays in the question whether scholars from social sciences and the humanities are sufficiently involved. Our analysis is based on the curriculum vitae of 97 members of the expert group, and reads quite straightforward: there is an overall lack of non-natural science perspectives and expertise that might lead to essential knowledge and data gaps when wishing to understand the effects of the diverse human concepts of and activities on biodiversity and ecosystem services. In order to address these gaps and to derive at an assessment report truly relevant for policy makers as well as other social and scientific actors, IPBES needs to widen its outreach to networks of scholars from the social sciences and the humanities and to inform them appropriately about the specific roles they could play within IPBES processes, particularly assessments.

BackgroundFreshwater ecosystems are globally imperiled, with monitored vertebrate populations showing an average 83% decline since 1970. Braiding Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with Western science is increasingly recognized by global bodies like the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) as essential for achieving the transformative change needed to address this crisis. This systematic map provides a comprehensive, global synthesis of the diverse methodologies used for this purpose by answering the primary question: What is the evidence base for methodologies (approaches, frameworks, or models) that braid the TEK of Indigenous and local communities with Western science in the planning, management, monitoring, or assessment of freshwater social-ecological systems? The resulting synthesis is intended to empower researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to design more effective and equitable management strategies.MethodsFollowing Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE) guidelines, our protocol employs a multi-layered search strategy across three core bibliographic databases, targeted grey literature sources (including dissertations and key organizational websites), and a supplementary review-centric snowballing search. Records will be screened for eligibility in a two-stage process (Title/ and Full-text) with robust consistency checking to ensure transparency and minimize bias. Data from included articles will be coded using a detailed protocol designed to answer our secondary questions and build a typology of knowledge braiding methodologies. The systematic map’s outputs will include a narrative synthesis identifying knowledge gaps and clusters, a comprehensive public database of included studies, and a suite of interactive data visualizations.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13750-025-00371-8.

Introduction: Oceans cover over 70% of Earth’s surface (Cael et al. 2023). An estimated 2.2 million marine species exist, yet nearly 80% remain undescribed (Mora et al. 2011). Around 370,000 species are accepted in the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), but open-access occurrence data exists for only about 200,000 in the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS). Documenting marine biodiversity is vital for making evidence-based policy and management decisions in order to maintain ecosystem stability and planetary health. Initiatives such as the Census of Marine Life and open-access databases like OBIS continue to transform understanding and support the UN Decade of Ocean Science. Through data sharing and global collaboration, we can better estimate and conserve marine biodiversity by first identifying data and knowledge gaps. Methods: In two underrepresented areas, the South-West Pacific (SWP) and the Indian Ocean (IO), the current biodiversity patterns of fauna were mapped to identify the knowledge gaps and distribution patterns by depth zones. All occurrence data (Animalia) were extracted from the OBIS and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The occurrence records were quality-controlled in accordance with the OBIS data quality guidelines (OBIS 2025). Only accepted marine taxa were retained after cross-referencing species names with the WoRMS. In total, 5,441,962 occurrence records in the SWP and 7,768,826 occurrence records in the IO were used in this study (Suppl. material 1). Results: The number of occurrence records decreased with depth in all taxa in both oceans. More than 60% of the occurrence records with available depth information were from shallow waters (0–200 m), highlighting significant knowledge gaps in deep-sea biodiversity. Still, more than 11 million km² of the SWP and IO had fewer than 50 occurrence records after data cleaning in the shallow waters. Based on 5-degree latitudinal bands, the higher latitudes of the SWP (0–25°S) were less sampled or the data were not reported, compared to the lower latitudes. Mid-latitudes of the SWP (30–45°S, eastern and western Australia) had the greatest distribution records, mostly related to Chordata, followed by Arthropoda and Mollusca. However, 10–25°S latitudes of the SWP had the highest number of reported species, mostly associated with Chordata, followed by Mollusca and Arthropoda. The mid-latitudes of the IO (5–30°S) were less sampled, or the data were not reported, compared to the upper and lower latitudes. Chordata occurrence records were the exception, with a peak at 10–25°S latitudes showing the highest distribution records, followed by Arthropoda. Also, 10–20°S latitudes of the IO had the greatest number of species, mostly related to Chordata, followed by Arthropoda and Mollusca (Suppl. material 2) and (Suppl. material 3). Application: The generated knowledge is crucial for strengthening biodiversity monitoring and ensuring rapid, accessible information for policymakers through science-policy interfaces such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), thereby supporting the development of urgent conservation strategies for underrepresented and threatened marine ecosystems, such as the SWP and the IO, before it is too late.

The Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: moving a step closer to an IPCC-like mechanism for biodiversity

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) plays a critical role in environmental governance by synthesizing knowledge for policy-makers. In this context, the co-production of knowledge among scientists, indigenous knowledge holders, and societal actors is increasingly important. Despite inclusive goals, the organization often overlooks how uneven geographies and power relations shape collaborative knowledge production. Drawing on qualitative interviews with IPBES experts, administrators, and government representatives, we apply Science and Technology Studies perspectives to analyze the co-production of knowledge among geographically diverse scientists in the IPBES global assessment. Our findings indicate that IPBES’s approach to co-production neglects the political and situated nature of knowledge production, inadvertently reinforcing contemporary colonial power dynamics within the organization. These dynamics influence the abilities of member states to participate in IPBES, perpetuate the North/South divide, and reproduce geographical biases within global academia. This has led to an overrepresentation of Western scientists and enhanced their epistemic authority during the global assessment. We highlight a disconnect between IPBES’s ambitions to transcend the traditional dominance of Western perspectives through inclusive approaches and its actual knowledge-making practices. We discuss the interrelations between knowledge, power, and social orders at the science-policy interface from a geographical perspective and propose six measures for a more reflexive and inclusive approach to knowledge co-production. These recommendations emphasize the importance of recognizing the contextual nature of knowledge, thereby strengthening IPBES’s transformative potential.

BackgroundThe Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has estimated that invasive alien species (IAS) might cause billions of dollars of losses every year across the world. One example is South-East Asia, where IAS have caused an estimated loss of 33.5 billion USD, affecting the environment, human health, and agricultural production. Factors associated with climate change, such as increased carbon dioxide (CO2), heavy precipitation, and elevated temperatures is expected to facilitate biological invasion, leading only to further financial and public health loss. Thus, further study is needed to identify, collate and categorise what evidence exists on the impacts of climate change on fish and shellfish species that contribute to the list of “One Hundred of the World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species” as identified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN). Such mapping will identify regions more at risk of biological invasion as climate change progresses.MethodsWe outline a systematic mapping review protocol that follows the Guideline and Standards for Evidence Synthesis in Environmental Management and RepOrting standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses (ROSES). We describe how peer-reviewed articles will be collected from Web of Science and Scopus, and then analyzed to create knowledge maps on the impact climate change has on invasive species. Finally, we speculate on how our results will aid future management of invasive species in the light of climate change.

The loss of biodiversity from human activities on land is a widely-recognized, worldwide problem. Since the advent of the industrial revolution the loss of plant and animal species has increased dramatically, with 25% of species now at risk of extinction. Conventions and targets to protect biodiversity have been implemented, but with limited success. The Aichi targets for 2020, for example, were almost all missed, with worsening trends for 12 out of the 20 targets. One reason for this failure is the ineffective application of broad-scale measures that are not tailored to the underlying causes of biodiversity loss. Knowledge on the spatial and temporal distribution of anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity loss would therefore enable targeted interventions that address location-specific stressors and thus would be better-adapted measures to protect biodiversity.The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has identified five main drivers of anthropogenic origin as the causes of biodiversity loss: land use, natural resource extraction, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species. However, when seeking to quantify impacts on biodiversity, these drivers are still usually treated separately. We develop a Biodiversity Pressure Index (BPI) by quantifying and mapping data for nine indicators of the five drivers into a single, annually changing index with a spatial resolution of 0.1° at global scale covering the period 1990-2020. We find that large areas (approximately 86%, including Antarctica, Greenland) are under major human pressure and that almost all areas have experienced an increase (about 96% of land) in pressure over the past thirty years. Industrialised regions had high pressure levels already in 1990 and continue to do so in 2020, whereas regions with rapid economic growth setting in after 2000 where low in pressure in 1990, but show high pressure levels today. Whilst areas impacted by human activities are increasing, areas of wilderness are decreasing to a point that in 2020, only 0.02% of the terrestrial land are entirely free from human influence. (Sub-) tropical wetlands and temperate grasslands are the biomes with the highest pressures today. And whilst land use is still one of the main factors, climate change - especially increasing temperature - is one of the major recent and future threats to biodiversity.

In 2016, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published its first methodological assessment report on scenarios and models, identifying important gaps in the literature. IPBES has since then moved onto Phase 2, namely a commitment to build on the assessment findings to catalyse the development of the next generation of multi-scale models and scenarios for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Part of that commitment involves the inclusion of Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) in those models and scenarios. IPBES is both an institution (with its governance structure, work programme, deliverables, and so on) and a network (with its member states, authors, stakeholders, and readership). Within that network, the methodological assessment report can be said to be ‘performative’, ergo playing a significant role in shaping engagement and research pathways in the years to come. Within the social sciences, this paper marks a first attempt at evaluating some of the potential challenges of Phase 2—with specific regard to the inclusion of ILK—and strives to generate more engagement from social scientists and humanities scholars on this issue. I combine in-depth expert interviews with document analysis and focus on the ideas of ‘scale translation’ and the translation of ILK into quantitative data—which I contend are likely to be the most contentious and arduous aspects of ‘integration’. I conclude that while IPBES is on track for leading the research community away from IPCC-type global, panoptic models and scenarios, a more honest and genuine dialogue between natural scientists, social scientists, and ILK holders is still required—so as to better communicate what may be (scientifically) feasible and (politically) acceptable.

Bumping against the boundary: IPBES and the knowledge divide