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Climate change drives ecological novelty and new social challenges

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Ecosystems are changing rapidly because of climate change, and this will have increasing social effects around the globe. We suggest that common social responses to rising novelty are often counterproductive, and we advocate for strategies that also allow for acceptance and adaptation to changes in nature.

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Fig. 1: Overview on social implications of climate change-driven ecological novelty.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin, Germany

    Tina Heger

  2. Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Tina Heger

  3. Restoration Ecology, TUM School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany

    Tina Heger

  4. Institute of Ecology, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany

    Tina Heger

  5. School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Marcus J. Collier

  6. School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    Eric Higgs

  7. Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics Prague, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

    Rosine Kelz

  8. Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University, Acton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Jasper Montana

Authors

  1. Tina Heger
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  2. Marcus J. Collier
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  3. Eric Higgs
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  4. Rosine Kelz
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  5. Jasper Montana
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to
Tina Heger.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Heger, T., Collier, M.J., Higgs, E. et al. Climate change drives ecological novelty and new social challenges.
Nat. Clim. Chang. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02672-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02672-3

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