NSF Research: Biodiversity on a Changing Planet

The biodiversity found in nature is essential for healthy ecosystems and human well-being. However, the disruption and decline of Earths biodiversity is currently occurring at an unprecedented rate. The resulting shifts in biodiversity dynamics including changes in the scope and structure of biodiversity are increasingly significant but not well understood. Shifting biodiversity dynamics (i.e., shifts in scope, structure, and interactions of biodiversity) in turn influence functional biodiversity, which includes the roles of traits, organisms, species, communities, and ecosystem processes in natural systems. Changes in biodiversity dynamics and functional biodiversity are components of future planetary resilience under environmental change, including climate change. The connection between functional biodiversity and biodiversity dynamics on a changing planet is the main focus of the Biodiversity on a Changing Planet (BoCP) program. The program encourages proposals that integrate ecological and evolutionary approaches in the context of the continual gain, loss, and reorganization of biodiversity on a changing planet. To advance a comprehensive understanding of functional biodiversity requires a highly integrative approach including consideration of spatial and temporal dimensions from the organismal to the ecosystem level, and from recent to deep timescales. The BoCP program is a cross-directorate and international program led by NSF that invites submission of interdisciplinary proposals addressing grand challenges in biodiversity science within the context of unprecedented environmental change, including climate change. Successful BoCP proposals will test novel hypotheses about functional biodiversity and its connections to shifting biodiversity on a changing planet, with respect to both how environmental change affects taxonomic and functional biodiversity, as well as how the resulting functional biodiversity across lineages feeds back on the environment. Proposals that seek to improve predictive capability about functional biodiversity across temporaland spatial scales by considering the linkages between past, present, and future biological, climatic, and geological processes are also encouraged. While this focus complements several core programs at NSF, it differs by requiring an integrative approach to understanding functional biodiversity as it relates to shifting biodiversity under changing environmental conditions. The program supports both US-only collaborative proposals and proposals with international partnerships with the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the So Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) of Brazil, and the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. International collaborative proposals are to be submitted jointly, with the U.S. PIs submitting to NSF and the collaborating Chinese, Brazilian, or South African PIs submitting to their appropriate national funding agencies. These agreements do not preclude other international collaborations (see solicitation for additional details).