Reviews and syntheses: Current perspectives on biosphere research 2025: from poly-crisis to poly-solutions

Accelerating changes across various Earth system compartments, coupled with intensifying geopolitical and socio-economic turbulences, have increased the interdependence of global crises, resulting in a complex polycrisis.

This review summarises recent advances in biosphere research, focusing on ten topics selected for their thematic relevance to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, socio-economic interactions and anthropogenic threats to the biosphere. An interdisciplinary expert panel identified these themes from a public survey, based on scientific relevance and evidence. The aim is to inspire future research and provide decision-makers with actionable solutions.

The themes highlight innovative opportunities to enhance resilience, advance the understanding of dryland dynamics, promote a sustainable bioeconomy, foster greener urban planning, regulate disease dynamics, support nature-based solutions, mitigate the impact of conflict on the biosphere, address demographic challenges to ecosystem stewardship, integrate indigenous knowledge and embed biosphere valuation in decision-making processes.