Macrosystems revisited: challenges and successes in a new subdiscipline of ecology

Abstract

Macrosystems biology research has expanded and evolved over the past decade as the scientific community grapples with ecological issues at regional to continental scales relevant to human interactions within the biosphere. Macrosystems biology builds on established fields of study like population and community ecology, biogeography, and global biogeochemistry, and has the potential to develop into a unique and important subdiscipline. If we achieve this outcome, macrosystems research will likely have increasing relevance to ecological science and its practical application, and could potentially transform large-scale ecological understanding. Both previous studies and the articles included in this Special Issue document the development of a broad spectrum of macrosystems approaches, how ecological researchers have accommodated the sociological aspects of collaboration among diverse individuals and groups, and how new methods are being applied to deal with the large and diverse types of data used by macrosystems biologists.