Fifteen emerging challenges and opportunities for vegetation science: a horizon scan by early-career researchers

With the aim to identify future challenges and opportunities in vegetation science, we brought together a group of 22 early career vegetation scientists from diverse backgrounds to perform a horizon scan. In this contribution, we present a selection of 15 topics that were ranked by participants as the most emergent and impactful for vegetation science in the face of global change. We highlight methodological tools that we expect will play a critical role in resolving emerging issues by providing ways to unveil new aspects of plant community dynamics and structure. These tools include next generation sequencing, plant spectral imaging, process-based species distribution models, resurveying studies and permanent plots. Further, we stress the need to integrate long-term monitoring, the study of novel ecosystems, below-ground traits, pollination interactions and global networks of near-surface microclimate data at fine spatio-temporal resolutions to fully understand and predict the impacts of climate change on vegetation dynamics. We also emphasize the need to integrate traditional forms of knowledge and a diversity of stakeholders into research, teaching, management and policy-making to advance the field of vegetation science. The conclusions reached by this horizon scan naturally reflect the background, expertise and interests of a representative pool of early career vegetation scientists, which should serve as basis for future developments in the field.
We would like to thank the IAVS for their support in organizing the workshop in October. FAY is grateful to J. Jeschke for his suggestions and advice on logistics for the horizon scan. FAY would like to thank the support of the Rising Star Junior Fellowship in the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy of the Freie Universität and specially the women’s representative office at the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy of the Freie Universität (Frauenbeauftragte BCP) for providing financial support for childcare during Germany’s COVID-19 lockdowns. Without this help, working on this manuscript would have not been possible during these hard times. We acknowledge PhD grants from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo - FAPESP (2018/09054-0) to GD, from Conselho Nacional do Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico- CNPq (141715/2018-9) to JT, from an Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) Scholarship to MJMH, from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia granted to TŠ, from the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) to FK and from Mexico’s CONACyT (CVU: 348078) to CXPV