Knowledge gaps

Data on the impacts of climate change on marine and coastal governance regimes

g) Data on the comparative effectiveness of different models of marine governance relating to conservation

Better data to develop biodiversity and environmental quality standards

Data on areas of uncertainty in applying the precautionary principle

c) Data on the comparative effectiveness of different processes of access and benefit sharing to ensure fairness and equity

Data on extinction risks and population trends, especially for insects, parasites and fungal and microbial species

Data on the extent of the participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in environmental governance

Data on the impacts of mainstreaming biodiversity across sectors

Data on the impacts of war and conflict on nature and nature’s contributions to people

Data to analyse the effectiveness of many policy options and interventions, including:

Extinction risks and population trends for the following taxonomic groups: insects, fungal species, microbial species (microorganisms) and parasites

Indicators on the impacts of environmentally harmful subsidies and trends and effectiveness of their removal at the global level

Inventories in soil, benthic and freshwater environments, and the implications for ecosystem functions

More comprehensive understanding of how human-caused changes to any Essential Biodiversity Variable class (e.g., ecosystem structure) have impacts on others (e.g., community composition) and on nature’s contributions to people

Need for indicators for some Sustainable Development Goals and Aichi Biodiversity Targets (e.g., Aichi Biodiversity Target 15 on ecosystem resilience and contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks and Target 18 on integration of traditional knowledge and effective participation of indigenous and local communities.)

Quantitative data showing how nature, its contributions to people, and good quality of life interact and change in time along different pathways

Scenarios about nonmaterial benefits to people compared to material benefits and regulating benefits

Syntheses of how human impacts affect organismal traits and global patterns and trends in genetic composition

Syntheses of indigenous and local knowledge about the status and trends in nature

The Amazon is responsible for delivering all sorts of ecosystem services, despite essential gaps in the scientific literature (Pires et al., 2018)

To better understand and quantify interaction of all the processes involved, future monitoring and research is needed (Macias-Fauria et al., 2020)

Despite growing awareness of the linkages between biodiversity loss and climate change, we still lack a full understanding of how social issues, particularly inter- and intra-generational equity, are affected by interventions to mitigate climate change or to conserve biodiversity (Halpern and Fujita, 2013; Zafra-Calvo et al., 2019).

The linkages between biodiversity, climate and social issues can have significant implications for the effectiveness of policies designed to address them, with outcomes that can be co-detrimental, display strong or weak trade-offs, or even deliver co-benefits (see Section 6).

The fate of the extra captured carbon is unknown, including potentially harmful disruption in the marine food web (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2019.

Marine ice loss in the Arctic has many consequences in addition to these. The net outcome of changes in primary production in open Arctic waters, loss of benthic production from under-ice algae, loss of pagophilic (ice-dependent) species and lower albedo is as yet unclear so we cannot yet reach any clear conclusions on Arctic mitigation potential (Rogers et al., 2020).

The capacities and limits to adaptation for the vast majority of species are not well known due to lack of sufficient data (Urban et al., 2016; IPBES, 2019; Razgour et al., 2019)

The vast majority of these models do not, however, account for important mechanisms of adaptation (Razgour et al., 2019; Settele et al., 2014).

Estimates of non-monetary and indirect benefits of REDD+ are lacking due to a lack of expertise and inadequate information about environmental and biodiversity benefits (Rakatama et al., 2017).

The body of evidence regarding the ability of the adoption of agroecological principles to achieve multiple benefits within agricultural landscapes (including improved conservation) is growing – although research gaps remain (see, for example, Wanger et al. (2020), and their discussion of a research agenda for agroecology). )

Offsets in particular raise complicated governance questions for both biodiversity and climate, and the effectiveness of regulations of these sectors is unclear.

Many of the ecological SDG goals have lack a focus on ecosystem functions or integrity, as well as insufficient attention to feedbacks (Reyers & Selig, 2020).

Gaps remain, however, in moving beyond theoretical concerns to the design of practical frameworks but are essential to address fragmented legal and governance regimes across multiple governance scales.

Current scenarios used by the IPCC do not differentiate between natural forest regrowth, reforestation with plantations, and afforestation of land not previously tree-covered, which makes assessment of biodiversity impacts difficult and is a knowledge gap that needs to be addressed.

Globally, disturbance of previously undisturbed marine sediment carbon through trawling was estimated to release the equivalent of 15 to 20% of atmospheric CO2 absorbed annually by the ocean. Such order of magnitude indicates a knowledge gap on ocean carbon storage capacity to be closed by further research.

Closing critical knowledge gaps on: Key risk behaviours – in global consumption, in rural communities on the frontline of disease emergence, in the private sector, in national governments – that lead to pandemics

Economic analyses of return-on-investment for programmes that reduce the environmental changes that lead to pandemics

Efforts to quantify fine scale hotspots of disease emergence could be supported by donor countries, the WHO and others, to identify regions for enhanced surveillance.

Closing critical knowledge gaps on: undiscovered microbial diversity in wildlife that has potential to emerge in future, or to be used to develop therapeutics or vaccines

Valuing Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities’ engagement and knowledge in pandemic prevention programs - The development of successful strategies and policies may therefore benefit from collaboration with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to bridge the knowledge gap across cultures

Valuing Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ engagement and knowledge in pandemic prevention programmes

National agencies from EID hotspot countries could work with donor countries to fund programs that aim to identify, triage, characterize, and monitor the high-risk microbes in wildlife that have high potential to act as zoonotic reservoirs.

Analyzing trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and disease transmission within landscape conservation and restoration programs - There is a paucity of empirical data on how large-scale conservation programs that restore habitat, create corridors, or otherwise alter landscapes affect disease transmission, despite evidence from limited studies and modelling that they can promote or reduce disease risk.

Analyzing EID risk within freshwater and marine ecosystems and analyzing the importance of vector-borne disease risk and migratory species in disease spread

Closing critical knowledge gaps on: how the wildlife trade supply chain alters disease risk, from capture through to market and slaughter, and how this differs depending on diversity of wildlife and livestock, and density of animals in the trade

Improving understanding of the relationship between ecosystem degradation and restoration and landscape structure, and the risk of emergence of disease.

Closing critical knowledge gaps on: analysing the evolutionary underpinnings of host shifts that are involved in zoonotic disease spillover and the adaptation of emerging pathogens to new host species

Closing critical knowledge gaps on: climate change impacts and related extreme weather events (e.g. flooding and droughts) on disease emergence, to anticipate future threats

Policies to build knowledge on further incursions of novel diseases or expanding cases of known diseases due to climate change would help drive policy changes to anticipate and reduce further health impacts

Closing critical knowledge gaps on: OneHealth: knowledge gap on evaluating the framework, trade-offs, barriers to implementation: The promotion of One Health science would provide an overarching mechanism to enable closing of knowledge gaps. This would likely need to begin with transdisciplinary academic training in faculties of medicine, veterinary medicine, public health, and social, ecological and environmental sciences, both in develop and developing countries.

Incomplete or lack of inventories of invasive alien species in marine, tropical and Arctic ecosystems {2.5.2.1, 2.5.2.4, 2.5.2.5, 2.5.4}