Advancing our biological and ecological predictive capabilities

Policy makers, resource managers, and decision makers in the public and private sectors increasingly call for more and better predictions of future environmental conditions and of the impacts that environmental and societal change may have on ecosystems and the ecological goods and services that people depend upon. By 2025, a suite of powerful new remote sensing, analytical, and computational tools and capabilities will be in place. These tools will be used to assess the health and functioning of global ecosystems and to predict the effects of natural and anthropogenic change, such as extreme natural events, climate change, changes in land use, pollution, species invasions, and pest and disease outbreaks. The resulting ecological forecasts will incorporate the interactive effects of multiple biotic and abiotic stressors as well as socioeconomic factors