ESA Hot Topics Online Forum

Australia is facing a biodiversity crisis, with species loss and ecosystem degradation occurring at unprecedented rates. In this rapidly shifting landscape, there is an urgent need for science-based, well-informed decision making to guide effective conservation strategies. At the same time, Australia’s environmental policy is evolving swiftly, creating both challenges and opportunities for evidence to influence outcomes. This online forum brought together ecologists from a range of disciplines, each highlighting key research or critical themes that can shape conservation practice or the future of environmental governance.

The Ecological Society of Australia regularly publishes ‘Hot Topics in Ecology’, a special article type that appears both as a peer-reviewed paper in Austral Ecology and a publicly available factsheet. These mini-reviews present an evidence-based syntheses of topics relevant to environmental policy development and land management, also broadening the community’s ecological knowledge base. The intent of Hot Topics is to summarise current evidence on a key issue or idea in ecology and conservation for a general audience.

This forum featured presenters on a wide range of Hot Topics, united by their relevance to current and emerging environmental issues, loosely gathered into one theme per session. Session One focused on topics which are most relevant to land managers, and Session Two focused on topics of interest to policymakers. Each session featured Hot Topic presentations, finishing with a live Q&A plus facilitated discussion reflecting on current or upcoming Hot Topics in Ecology.