Mojtaba Fakhraee: Deep Earth control on the co-evolution of life and environment

About five years ago, in early 2020, I started my journey as an Editorial Board Member for the newly launched journal. I have been engaged in handling and consulting on submissions across a wide range of topics in Earth science. Specifically, I have been involved with manuscripts in geochemistry and petrology, both of which are central to understanding the co-evolution of Earth’s interior, surface processes, and life. The traditional view in studying the co-evolution of life and its environment has focused on surface-driven mechanisms—such as photosynthesis, silicate weathering, and ocean circulation—as the primary regulators of climate, atmospheric oxygenation, and biological complexity. Nonetheless, growing evidence points to a more fundamental role for deep Earth processes in shaping long-term planetary habitability1,2,3.

Core and mantle dynamics regulate heat and volatile fluxes, sustain the geomagnetic field, and drive tectonic and volcanic activity—all of which influence surface redox conditions and atmospheric evolution. Strong correlations between variations in geomagnetic field strength and atmospheric oxygenation over the Phanerozoic suggest a more direct coupling between deep Earth dynamics and surface biogeochemical cycles than previously assumed3.

In the 2023, Communications Earth & Environment article, Hu et al.4 investigated the deep subduction of sedimentary organic carbon into Earth’s mantle beneath subarc regions. They used petrology, Raman spectroscopy, and carbon isotope analyses to show that sedimentary organic carbon can be subducted to depths exceeding 90 km, survive ultra-high-pressure metamorphism, and enter the deep carbon cycle4. This finding illustrates a direct pathway by which biologically fixed carbon is transported from the surface into Earth’s interior, and strengthens the link between shallow biosphere processes and long-term mantle evolution.

Earth system evolution is thus reframed: deep Earth processes regulate carbon, sulfur, and oxygen cycles, and thereby shape climate stability and surface conditions over geological time. By highlighting mantle redox states, core heat flow, and lithospheric dynamics, this line of research advances our understanding of Earth’s history and provides a framework for assessing planetary habitability. Moving forward, addressing these complex interactions will require interdisciplinary approaches and novel tools bridging geochemistry, petrology, and geodynamics.

Mojtaba Fakhraee, Editorial Board Member, 2020– present

Abandoned Mine Shaft. Credit: Shaunl

Joseph Aslin: Human stories

With my geology background, it’s not often I get to think about ancient Celtic settlers beating the Vikings to far-flung, storm-battered shores. However, a paper I handled along with one of our long-standing editorial board members, Rachael Rhodes, in 2021 afforded me just that opportunity.

The article5 identified sheep DNA, fecal biomarkers, and evidence for widespread grazing within lake sediments on the Faroe Islands that could be dated to around 500 CE. Sheep could not have got there without people, but the generally accepted settlement of the Faroes was by Viking adventurers in the mid-9th century. The implication? People had reached the Faroe Islands about 300 years earlier than we thought – and they probably came from the British Isles, rather than Scandinavia.

This paper gave me a new appreciation of the way geosciences can contribute to fields that I would have previously considered unrelated. It also highlighted how humans have been impacting the environment in lasting and measurable ways for centuries.

But there’s another reason this paper sticks in my mind. On the day it was published in December 2021, I was at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The world was slowly emerging from the COVID-19 nightmare, and this was my first in-person conference post-pandemic.

The author, Lorelei Curtin, was presenting at the conference, and I was able to meet her, hear about the media interest that had followed the press release we issued, and learn what it meant to her to have her work published. It may not sound like much, but I had spent the previous two years (my entire career as an editor) primarily within the COVID-19 bubble. We gain important perspective when we meet the researchers whose hard work we handle day-in, day-out.

Hopefully, unlike the first colonizers of a distant North Atlantic archipelago, the days of isolation for our research communities are in the past.

Joseph Aslin, Deputy Editor, 2020–present

Panorama Mulafossur Waterfall Gásadalur Village Vágar Faroe Islands. Credit: Mlenny

Paula Prist: Towards interdisciplinary research on ecosystem restoration

In 2025, we reach the midpoint of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030)6, which aims to support and expand efforts to prevent, halt, and reverse the degradation of ecosystems. Relevant to achieving ecosystem restoration goals is the recent Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Nexus Assessment7, which highlights the complexity and importance of the interrelationships between biodiversity, water, food, human health, and climate change. However, there is a lack of research that assesses the feedback and cascading effects between more than two nexus elements.

I have been a member of the Editorial Board since January 2024, covering the topics of biodiversity, conservation, landscape ecology, and human health. I had the opportunity to assess several studies evaluating the effects of ecosystem restoration and degradation on climate change mitigation, biodiversity, and human health, and I observed the research gaps highlighted in the IPBES report. One of the studies that stood out to me is the study by Alibakhshi et al.8, which used random forest models to assess variations in land surface temperature, albedo, and evapotranspiration to predict how natural forest regeneration influences key local climate drivers. The authors demonstrated that natural forest regeneration can alter the annual mean land surface temperature by 0.01 °C, −0.59 °C, −0.50 °C, and −2.03 °C in the Boreal, Mediterranean, Temperate, and Tropical regions, respectively. The findings are key to showing how forest regeneration (one of the processes to achieve forest restoration) can help regulate the local climate, supporting climate change adaptation. However, by leading to decreases in land surface temperature, forest regeneration and restoration could also directly contribute to habitat loss reduction, biodiversity recovery, water and food security, and human health. These effects are also well-established and extensive, yet they are often addressed separately.

To gain a clearer understanding of the positive impacts of ecosystem restoration, interdisciplinary research is needed. Research that addresses the cascading effects of restoration, assessing how these effects can be perpetuated directly and indirectly for biodiversity, water, food security, and human health, including economic effects, could be key to ensuring that the UN’s decade of restoration leaves a long-term legacy. I hope that in the coming years, more interdisciplinary studies addressing these topics will be published in Communications Earth & Environment.

Paula Prist, Editorial Board Member, 2024–present

Planting trees and fir trees to restore the forest in a field, forest or nature reserve. Credit: Aleksander Zubkov

Martina Grecequet: Halting deforestation in the Southwest Amazon

Deforestation of tropical forests has a devastating impact on our climate and ecosystems. Indigenous and local communities that live in forest ecosystems can halt the loss of forest cover through their governance and practices. However, we do not know precisely where and how effective their practices are and what factors are involved. A lack of such knowledge and in-depth quantitative research may not only undermine the role of indigenous communities in protecting forests but also limit the interest of funding agencies in supporting their efforts.

Hence, I was thrilled to find on my desk a study by Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen et al.9, which focused on the role of Apurinã nations in halting deforestation in the Southwestern Amazon—an understudied region known for its large, moist forested area. The authors combined two decades (2001-2021) of remote sensing data, a statistical matching method, and community-based and ethnographic approaches to compare the change in forest cover in matched control territories with areas within an Apurinã territory. Their findings are compelling—Apurinã territories experienced approximately 387 square kilometers less forest loss compared to the control areas during the studied period, and nine of the assessed territories avoided a significant area of deforestation.

Despite extraordinary pressures from urban expansion, cattle ranching, road construction, and oppressive politics, the indigenous community protected its forest effectively. For me, and many of our readers, the Apurinã nation was a completely unknown community, and thanks to the study by Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen et al., we could learn about their practices and way of living with the forest. This inspiring story reminds us that our relationship to nature matters.

While the question of the overall role and contribution of indigenous communities to conservation efforts remains globally subject to heated debate10, the definitive evidence of avoided deforestation presented in this study will hopefully convince funders and policymakers to partner with the Apurinã nation and other communities to stop deforestation.

Martina Grecequet, Senior Editor, 2022–present

Deforestation in the Amazon. Credit: Luoman

Ariel Soto-Caro: Sustainable wheat production for food security in Latin America

In Latin America, wheat is widely consumed in the form of bread, pasta, and other processed goods. It contributes to both domestic nutrition and the sustainability of rural and agricultural economies. Climate change has intensified production risks by increasing yield variability and placing additional pressure on already scarce natural resources such as water and arable land. Although several countries in the region produce wheat domestically, many remain net importers, leaving them vulnerable to global supply disruptions and price volatility.

As an Editorial Board Member, I handle manuscripts on food security, climate change economics, natural resource economics, and sustainability, which allows me to deepen my understanding of the links between environmental sustainability and economic development. Hence, I was excited to handle the paper by Gong et al.11 because it illustrates how the availability of robust agricultural data and research infrastructure enables China to rigorously evaluate the impact of farming practices on both crop productivity and climate resilience. Such analyses are much more challenging to conduct in Latin America, where I am currently working, because of the limited availability of data, particularly on labor, input use, and environmental variables, which impede a thorough design and evaluation of agricultural policy. Gong et al. show that the adoption of optimized management practices, such as precise nitrogen application, efficient irrigation, and site-specific input use, can substantially increase wheat yields without expanding cultivated areas. These practices can also help reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture, particularly by lowering fertilizer use and mitigating soil and water degradation.

The findings are particularly relevant for Latin American countries, where resource constraints, sustainability challenges, and weak agricultural data systems limit the development of effective policy design. In areas like central and southern Chile, where wheat is vital and water scarcity is growing, improving input efficiency can help sustain yields and protect environmental quality. Strengthening data systems to support field trials and spatial-temporal modeling would enable more tailored, evidence-based policies, fostering resilient and sustainable wheat production amid increasing climate and market pressures.

Ariel Soto-Caro, Editorial Board Member, 2024–present

Wasco, Wheat ears in bright sunshine under blue sky. Credit: Erik Isakson

Alireza Bahadori: Unlocking subglacial secrets: a path to better sea-level predictions

Having been an Associate Editor for the journal since 2024, I have had the opportunity to handle manuscripts across multiple disciplines, including solid Earth, cryosphere, hydrology, and atmospheric sciences. This experience broadened my perspective on how geophysical conditions influence ice-sheet dynamics. A key takeaway is the urgent need to understand better subglacial Earth structures, which are crucial in shaping ice-sheet behavior and future sea-level projections.

Traditionally, studies of ice-sheet dynamics have emphasized surface processes such as accumulation, melting, and flow. Although climate-induced warming has long been recognized as a primary driver of ice loss, the role of subglacial processes in controlling ice-sheet behavior at the ice-bed interface has been less understood. This knowledge gap means many sea-level rise models may fail to capture the full complexity of ice-sheet behavior, shaped by both external climate forces and internal geophysical conditions. As climate change accelerates, addressing this limitation becomes increasingly urgent.

A research article by Hansen and Emry12, which I have handled, highlights how tectonic features and mantle dynamics affect ice-sheet stability. The authors used ambient noise tomography to investigate the East Antarctic tectonic basins, identifying low-velocity anomalies in the mantle that suggest a thermally altered subglacial environment. These findings challenge previous assumptions and highlight the crucial role of geothermal conditions in controlling ice-sheet dynamics, which are essential for refining future sea-level predictions.

Similarly, another research from Weerdesteijn and Conrad13 on Southeast Greenland shows how mantle plumes accelerate Earth’s viscous response to ice mass loss, especially around marine-terminating glaciers. The authors used 3-D Earth models that account for mantle viscosities and argue that as ice melts, resulting land uplift can destabilize ice sheets and affect sea-level rise. This emphasizes the need to incorporate mantle dynamics into ice-sheet models.

These findings suggest that refining sea-level predictions requires a better understanding of the geophysical conditions beneath the ice, highlighting the need for high-quality data on subglacial environments. Advancing techniques like ambient noise tomography and 3-D Earth modeling are essential for improved understanding of subglacial structures. Addressing these hidden geological factors will help improve models and ensure more reliable forecasts in a warming world.

Alireza Bahadori, Associate Editor, 2024–present

Glacier edge from the Greenland Ice Sheet with moraine in the foreground. Credit: Patricia Hamilton

Charlotte Kendra Gotangco Gonzales: Broad appeal of the research article relies less on scale and more on insight

I have been serving as an Editorial Board Member for 19 months, handling papers in the fields of sustainability, climate, and disaster risk. The variety of studies has led me to reflect on what constitutes “broad appeal” in these fields. “Broad appeal” refers to an article’s relevance to a wide readership, which can be challenging to achieve. Simply reporting findings may not be enough to demonstrate salience to a broad audience. In my view, what makes a compelling read is the insight and ability of authors to show how outcomes can scale up, out, or deep.

Large-scale environmental assessments, such as those addressing global land-use change or air quality trends, might seem relevant to many due to the spatial scope. However, studies at the regional and even local level can also connect with readers in different contexts. For example, Zumak et al.14 map risks to sedimentation and erosion in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the Amazon. The risk assessment is contextualized, requiring not only an understanding of the physical processes in the riverine systems but also the socio-economic conditions and ways of life, such as livelihood strategies and migration practices. What might readers in different geographies take away from the study? The article can prompt researchers to consider whether there are overlooked risks in their communities. Sedimentation is not currently recognized as a hazard in the Brazilian Classification and Coding of Disasters, and the authors argue that it should be. They further situate the outcomes of the study within the context of the need to recognize compound risks and shift to a more holistic approach to disaster risk management.

Local case studies can demonstrate broad appeal without necessarily stripping away contextual and cultural nuances. An examination of what worked (or didn’t), and why, could be relevant for researchers and practitioners in other communities. Even when the setting may be different, the very practice of reflection is a path that other researchers could follow. Learning about how research and policy were bridged, even on the scale of local decision-making, provides valuable information for scaling up the integration of science into evidence-based actions. Similarly, understanding the role of research in triggering change is at the very heart of making research usable. In short, the “broad appeal” of research articles, regardless of scale, comes from the infusion of insights that chart the road to impact.

Charlotte Kendra Gotangco Gonzales, Editorial Board Member, 2024–present

Lower Zambezi river at sunset hour. Credit: Golero