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Key research themes
1. How can ecological dynamics frameworks improve performance preparation and learning in high-level sport?
This theme focuses on applying ecological dynamics, a theoretical framework emphasizing athlete-environment interactions and complex adaptive systems, to optimize performance preparation and talent development in elite sports. It addresses challenges in coaching roles, practice environment design, and fostering athletes' self-regulation to adapt to dynamic competitive demands.
Key finding: The paper demonstrates that shifting coaching roles from prescriptive instructions to learning environment designers, who cultivate representative practice settings embodying ecological dynamics, enhances athletes’ capacities... Read more
2. What are the implications of using proxies and indices for ecological management and policy decisions?
This research investigates the widespread use of proxy measures (e.g., indices of abundance, habitat quality, ecosystem functions) in applied ecology and environmental management. It evaluates their validity, potential biases, and consequences for robustness of management recommendations across spatial and temporal scales.
Key finding: The study critically highlights that proxies such as track counts, camera trap rates, and hunting offtake often rely on unverified assumptions regarding their stable correlation with true population abundance, leading to... Read more
3. How do organizational ecological routines impact environmental management and firm performance?
This area examines the concept of ecological routines—firm-specific, persistent rules and procedures embedded in environmental management—and their role in fostering green decisions, behaviors, and overall organizational performance, drawing on evolutionary economics and green HRM perspectives.
Key finding: Empirical evidence from 33 U.S. environmental-sensitive organizations demonstrates that ecological routines combining capability routines (high-performance organizing) and practice routines (environmental sustainability... Read more
4. How can ecological theory inform adaptive ecosystem management under complexity and change?
This theme addresses the application of theoretical ecology—complex adaptive systems, self-organization, and nonequilibrium dynamics—to ecosystem management. It explores adaptive, flexible management strategies informed by simulation models to respond to ecosystem variability and uncertainty.
Key finding: The paper synthesizes ecological theory emphasizing ecosystems as dynamic, self-organizing systems far from equilibrium, exhibiting periods of stasis and rapid change. It argues against top-down, command-and-control... Read more
5. What are emerging approaches and the future direction of large-scale, action-oriented ecological research?
This theme investigates the rise of action ecology, characterized by rapid data synthesis, transdisciplinary collaboration, big data use, and explicit orientation toward informing policy and management of urgent ecological challenges.
Key finding: The authors articulate an expanded definition of action ecology emphasizing immediacy, transdisciplinarity, technological innovation, and stakeholder engagement to produce actionable ecological knowledge. They provide... Read more
6. How is ecosystem health conceptualized and assessed through organizational closure and malfunction in ecological communities?
This theme explores philosophical and theoretical advances in ecosystem health by applying the concept of organizational closure, typical of organisms, to ecosystems. It investigates functional behaviors, malfunctions, and the impacts of introduced species on ecosystem self-maintenance, aiming to provide objective criteria for ecosystem health assessment.
Key finding: By extending organizational closure concepts from philosophy of biology to ecosystems, the study defines ecosystem health as the intrinsic capacity to maintain appropriate functional behaviors among biotic components. It... Read more
7. What frameworks can clarify and communicate the ecological relevance and impact of research effectively across disciplinary and audience boundaries?
This theme addresses the challenge researchers face in articulating the relevance of ecological studies. It proposes a framework integrating theoretical connections, knowledge gaps, novelty, methodological innovation, and applicability to enhance clarity in project proposals, publications, and wider dissemination.
Key finding: The proposed framework identifies five key elements—clear theoretical connections, addressing knowledge gaps, novelty, methodological innovation, and applicability—that collectively construct a robust argument for research... Read more
8. How can theatre and performance contribute uniquely to ecological understanding and environmental engagement?
This theme explores the role of theatre as an ecological practice beyond representational content. It considers the performative and embodied nature of theatre as a mode that can foster ecological awareness and disrupt conventional human-nature dichotomies, emphasizing theatre's capacity for affective, experiential, and indirect ecological interventions.
Key finding: The article argues that theatre’s ecological value lies not in explicit environmental messaging but in its embodied, ephemeral, and affective modes of enactment that can unsettle established human-nature relations and foster... Read more
Key finding: The chapter connects disability arts with ecological perspectives, critically examining estrangement and othering processes shared in both fields. Through personal performance practice oriented by animism and... Read more
9. How can sustainable practices and eco-creativity be integrated into conventional theatre production?
This theme investigates sustainable production strategies in theatre, balancing creative, organizational, and ecological considerations. It examines challenges and opportunities for eco-efficiency and innovation within conventional scenography and production processes to reduce environmental impact while maintaining artistic integrity.
Key finding: Through a practice-led research project on the production of ‘Helicopter’ (Melbourne Theatre Company, 2012), the study evidences how eco-efficiency principles can be embedded in scenic design to enhance sustainability without... Read more
10. What are effective strategies for organizations to achieve nature-positive outcomes from food consumption impacts?
This research focuses on quantifying and mitigating biodiversity impacts embodied in organizational food consumption, applying mitigation and conservation hierarchies to develop actionable, system-level strategies for achieving nature-positive targets within institutional settings.
Key finding: The study utilizes life-cycle environmental impact data and biodiversity footprint metrics to evaluate an academic institution's food consumption impacts, revealing disproportionate biodiversity loss linked to certain food... Read more
Key finding: The editorial critically reviews the ‘nature positive’ concept, emphasizing the necessity of applying rigorous mitigation hierarchy principles to prevent greenwashing. It argues for robust baseline biodiversity protection and... Read more
11. Why is integrated, interdisciplinary environmental research crucial for addressing coupled social-ecological system challenges?
This theme underlines the imperative of interdisciplinary approaches bridging natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, and humanities to comprehensively study the dynamic interactions between human and ecological systems. It addresses emergent global environmental challenges requiring integrated data, theory, and governance innovations.
Key finding: Based on a 2000 interdisciplinary workshop, the paper synthesizes consensus that environmental challenges are complex, involving coupled social-ecological systems requiring integrated research on evolution, resilience,... Read more