Publications

Erik Zhivkoplias, Paul Dunshirn, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Robert Blasiak. 2025. From genes to innovation: exploring the use of marine genetic resources in biotechnology. One Ocean Science Congress. https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-498

Marine genetic resources (MGRs) are crucial for understanding marine biodiversity and tracking changes in ecosystems, while also providing a valuable foundation for biotechnological innovation. The recent adoption of the UN Treaty on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Treaty) and the inclusion of digital sequence information in this legally binding agreement open new opportunities for protecting biodiversity in th...

Ana Paula D Aguiar, David Collste, Sofia Cortés-Calderón, Taís Sonetti-González, Minella Alves-Martins, Antonio J. Castro, Amadou Diallo, Karl Martin Eriksson, Deborah Goffner, Zuzana V. Harmáčková, Amanda Jiménez-Aceituno, María D. López-Rodríguez, María Mancilla-García, Veronica Olofsson, Aldrin Perez-Marin, Francisco Gilney Silva-Bezerra, Hanna Sinare, Claire Stragier. 2025. Unravelling deep roots in drylands: A systems thinking participatory approach to the SDGs. Global Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2025.6

Achieving sustainability on the ground poses a challenge in decoding globallydefined goals, such as sustainable development goals, and aligning them withlocal perspectives and realities. This decoding necessitates theunderstanding of the multifaceted dimensions of the sustainabilitychallenges in a given context, including their underlying causes. In casestudies from Brazilian drylands, we illustrate how an enhanced multiscalep...

Gerald Singh, Nancy Karigitu, Leopoldo Gerhardinger, Frank Mirobo, Laura Pereira, Samiya Selim, Anna Zivian, Heloise Jean. 2025. Fostering inclusion and equity in ocean sustainability through knowledge co-construction. One Ocean Science Congress. https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-432

Ocean science plays a critical role in decision-making processes with distributional effects, which inherently carry equity implications. At the same time, concerns about equity shape how ocean science is conducted, influencing which scientific questions are prioritized. Expanding participation in setting research agendas through inclusive processes can significantly alter the trajectory of ocean science. Recent initiatives pr...

Victoria Reyes-García, Sebastian Villasante, Karina Benessaiah, Ram Pandit, Arun Agrawal, Joachim Claudet, Lucas A. Garibaldi, Mulako Kabisa, Laura Pereira, Yves Zinngrebe. 2025. The costs of subsidies and externalities of economic activities driving nature decline. Ambio. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-025-02147-3

Economic sectors that drive nature decline are heavily subsidized and produce large environmental externalities. Calls are increasing to reform or eliminate subsidies and internalize the environmental costs of these sectors. We compile data on subsidies and externalities across six sectors driving biodiversity loss—agriculture, fossil fuels, forestry, infrastructure, fisheries and aquaculture, and mining. The most updated esti...

Shun Kageyama, Madlen Sobkowiak, Henrik Österblom, Robert Blasiak. 2025. Exploring evidence of cascading change towards stewardship in the Japanese seafood industry. Marine Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2025.106626

There is a growing global demand for a more sustainable seafood industry, and pre-competitive initiatives have emerged on multiple continents to meet this demand. Such initiatives could have “cascading effects,” suggesting that their impacts may extend beyond their direct participants to effect broader, industry-wide change. To date, little research has been conducted to determine whether pre-competitive initiatives are trigge...

Emmy Wassénius, Giulia Rubin. 2025. Shock Tracker: A living database of shocks. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6470

There is mounting evidence that we are living in a time of turbulence, with many disruptive events becoming increasingly common and intense. In these times, understanding the dynamics of past shocks can help us better prepare and potentially prevent severe impacts in the future. The Shock Tracker is a living database of cases, encompassing everything from wildfires, to floods, disease outbreaks and conflict. The case studies a...

Tilman Hertz, Anja Klein, Maria Mancilla García, Maja Schlüter. 2025. Transforming a world that never stands still. Ecosystems and People. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2025.2469859

Process-relational perspectives (PRP) have been put forward as a crucial contribution for conceptualizing radical transformations towards sustainability. This is because PRP conceptualize transformations as open processes. This openness is attributed, first, to processes and relations having performative power, which means that processes and relations are constitutive of elements. Second, PRP take processes and relations as co...

Vajira Lasantha, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Juan Rocha, Ruud van der Ent, Markus Hrachowitz. 2025. Characterizing Anthropogenic Modification of Root Zone Storage Capacity. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18391

Vegetation plays a crucial role in regulating the water cycle through transpiration, which is influenced by the root zone storage capacity ( S R ). S R is dynamically influenced by climate, land use, and vegetation, with ecosystems adapting to environmental changes by modulating S R . Human interventions, such as deforestation, agriculture, and irrigation, significantly alter S R by changing vegetation cover and w...

Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Fabian Stenzel, Dieter Gerten, Lauren Seaby Andersen, Miina Porkka, Lars Wiersma, Malin Lundberg Ingemarsson, Johan Rockström. 2025. Critical freshwater requirements for meeting the Paris Agreement. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15423

Intact land and freshwater ecosystems are a prerequisite for limiting global warming in accordance with the Paris Agreement. However, the critical co-dependence of climate mitigation outcomes and freshwater dynamics tends to be neglected in both research and policies. Here, we suggest a framework for systematically quantifying the indispensable freshwater requirements for mitigation measures, focused on natural and managed ter...

Simon Felix Fahrländer, Lauren Seaby Andersen, Dieter Gerten, Marta Tuninetti, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Arie Staal, Johan Rockström, Nico Wunderling. 2025. Exploring global interdependencies from the hydrological cycle to virtual water flows through a network analysis. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15699

Freshwater is fundamental to Earth system processes, yet its global dynamics are often overlooked in water governance. With half of all terrestrial precipitation originating from land evaporation, the global interdependencies of atmospheric moisture flows remain underrepresented in policies addressing water security and climate adaptation. In particular, its impacts on global supply chains have not been assessed so far. Theref...