Global trends and scenarios for terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services from 1900 to 2050.

Based on an extensive model intercomparison, we assessed trends in biodiversity and ecosystem services from historical reconstructions and future scenarios of land-use and climate change. During the 20th century, biodiversity declined globally by 2 to 11%, as estimated by a range of indicators. Provisioning ecosystem services increased several fold, and regulating services decreased moderately.

Spatial heterogeneity of global forest aboveground carbon stocks and fluxes constrained by spaceborne lidar data and mechanistic modeling.

Forest carbon is a large and uncertain component of the global carbon cycle. An important source of complexity is the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation vertical structure and extent, which results from variations in climate, soils, and disturbances and influences both contemporary carbon stocks and fluxes. Recent advances in remote sensing and ecosystem modeling have the potential to significantly improve the characterization of vegetation structure and its resulting influence on carbon.

Anthropogenic emission is the main contributor to the rise of atmospheric methane during 1993-2017.

Atmospheric methane (CH) concentrations have shown a puzzling resumption in growth since 2007 following a period of stabilization from 2000 to 2006. Multiple hypotheses have been proposed to explain the temporal variations in CH growth, and attribute the rise of atmospheric CH either to increases in emissions from fossil fuel activities, agriculture and natural wetlands, or to a decrease in the atmospheric chemical sink. Here, we use a comprehensive ensemble of CH source estimates and isotopic δC-CH source signature data to show that the resumption of CH growth is most likely due to increased anthropogenic emissions.

Integrating remote sensing with ecology and evolution to advance biodiversity conservation.

Remote sensing has transformed the monitoring of life on Earth by revealing spatial and temporal dimensions of biological diversity through structural, compositional and functional measurements of ecosystems. Yet, many aspects of Earth's biodiversity are not directly quantified by reflected or emitted photons. Inclusive integration of remote sensing with field-based ecology and evolution is needed to fully understand and preserve Earth's biodiversity.