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Abstract To thrive in extreme conditions, organisms have evolved a diverse arsenal of adaptations that confer resilience. These species, their traits, and the mechanisms underlying them comprise a valuable resource that can be mined for numerous conceptual insights and applied objectives. One of the most dramatic adaptations to water limitation is desiccation tolerance. Understanding the mechanisms underlying desiccation tolerance has important potential implications for medicine, biotechnology, agriculture, and conservation. However, progress has been hindered by a lack of standardization across sub-disciplines, complicating the integration of data and slowing the translation of basic discoveries into practical applications. Here, we synthesize current knowledge on desiccation tolerance across evolutionary, ecological, physiological, and cellular scales to provide a roadmap for advancing desiccation tolerance research. We also address critical gaps and technical roadblocks, highlighting the need for standardized experimental practices, improved taxonomic sampling, and the development of new tools for studying biology in a dry state. We hope that this perspective can serve as a roadmap to accelerating research breakthroughs and unlocking the potential of desiccation tolerance to address global challenges related to climate change, food security, and health.

Abstract Wood density is a critical control on tree biomass, so poor understanding of its spatial variation can lead to large and systematic errors in forest biomass estimates and carbon maps. The need to understand how and why wood density varies is especially critical in tropical America where forests have exceptional species diversity and spatial turnover in composition. As tree identity and forest composition are challenging to estimate remotely, ground surveys are essential to know the wood density of trees, whether measured directly or inferred from their identity. Here, we assemble an extensive dataset of variation in wood density across the most forested and tree-diverse continent, examine how it relates to spatial and environmental variables, and use these relationships to predict spatial variation in wood density over tropical and sub-tropical South America. Our analysis refines previously identified east-west Amazon gradients in wood density, improves them by revealing fine-scale variation, and extends predictions into Andean, dry, and Atlantic forests. The results halve biomass prediction errors compared to a naïve scenario with no knowledge of spatial variation in wood density. Our findings will help improve remote sensing-based estimates of aboveground biomass carbon stocks across tropical South America.

Abstract One-carbon feedstocks such as formate could be promising renewable substrates for sustainable microbial production of food, fuels and chemicals. Here we replace the native energy-inefficient Calvin–Benson–Bassham cycle in Cupriavidus necator with the more energy-efficient reductive glycine pathway for growth on formate and CO2. In chemostats, our engineered strain reached a 17% higher biomass yield than the wild type and a yield higher than any natural formatotroph using the Calvin cycle. This shows the potential of synthetic metabolism to realize sustainable, bio-based production.

Providing food security has traditionally been an important motive for development cooperation. At the same time, agriculture also has a major impact on the environment, which in turn threatens food production itself. This article argues that the tension between food production and global environmental change is largely caused by a modern dualism that pits man and nature, donor and recipient, and modernity and tradition against each other. It explores whether stewardship can help Christian NGOs find a way forward. Stewardship is closely linked to a Christian view of the relationship between man and earth and the relationship of people to each other. However, it is not uncontroversial. Therefore, a reinterpretation of the concept is needed. Finally, three principles are discussed that derive from a renewed vision of stewardship and can provide strategic direction: working together with nature, empowering local communities and adaptive transformation. Stewardship does not offer ready-made solutions, but that is precisely its strength. It appeals to practical wisdom. Every context is different and requires its own balance of values and interests.

Novel climate interventions are proliferating and upscaling in marine systems. However, how social impacts are managed remains unclear. We combine a global survey of intervention actors, interviews with best-practice leaders, and policy analysis to assess whether and how social responsibility is considered when proposing, testing, and/or implementing 76 marine climate interventions worldwide. We find that technical feasibility trumps social considerations. Feasibility assessments predominantly rely on biophysical data (63%), with 54% either not using social data or relying on spatial marine use data as the only social data source. Where public deliberation opportunities are available (61%), most are via formal regulatory channels (54%), with only 15% offering more inclusive engagement. Best-practice leaders confirm low organizational competency around social impact. Social responsibility is rarely mandated by governments and instead relies on voluntary initiation by emerging best-practice leaders. Extension and codification of best practices are urgently required for socially responsible governance of new marine climate interventions.

ABSTRACTBoreal forest regions, including East Siberia, have experienced elevated fire activity in recent years, leading to record‐breaking greenhouse gas emissions and severe air pollution. However, our understanding of the factors that eventually halt fire spread and thus limit fire growth remains incomplete, hindering our ability to model their dynamics and predict their impacts. We investigated the locations and timing of 2.2 million fire stops—defined as 300 m unburned pixels along fire perimeters—across the vast East Siberian taiga. Fire stops were retrieved from remote sensing data covering over 27,000 individual fires that collectively burned 80 Mha between 2012 and 2022. Several geospatial datasets, including hourly fire weather data and landscape variables, were used to identify the factors contributing to individual fire stops. Our analysis attributed 87% of all fire stops to a statistically significant (p < 0.01) change in one or more of these drivers, with fire‐weather drivers limiting fire growth over time and landscape drivers constraining it across space. We found clear regional and temporal variations in the importance of these drivers. For instance, landscape drivers—such as less flammable land cover and the presence of roads—were key constraints on fire growth in southeastern Siberia, where the landscape is more populated and fragmented. In contrast, fire weather was the primary constraint on fire growth in the remote northern taiga. Additionally, in central Yakutia, a major fire hotspot in recent years, fuel limitations from previous fires increasingly restricted fire spread. The methodology we present is adaptable to other biomes and can be applied globally, providing a framework for future attribution studies on global fire growth limitations. In northeast Siberia, we found that with increasing droughts and heatwaves, remote northern fires could potentially grow even larger in the future, with major implications for the global carbon cycle and climate.

This paper explores how key elements of crowdfunding campaigns contribute to the success of sustainable initiatives in terms of economic, social, and environmental dimensions, synthesizing existing literature on the intersection of crowdfunding and sustainability and identifying elements associated with successful outcomes. Our findings reveal that notable differences emerge in project types, platform roles, and the motivations of backers and initiators across sustainable goals. This research provides practical guidance for enhancing the effectiveness of crowdfunding initiatives aiming to foster sustainable innovation, aligning them with sustainable objectives. It also offers insights to support the development of alternative, sustainability-focused financing strategies.