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  • Perspective
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Complementary causal approaches to support biodiversity change attribution

Nature Reviews Biodiversity (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Robust attribution of biodiversity change to complex human drivers is crucial for mitigating biodiversity loss and achieving conservation targets under the United Nations Global Biodiversity Framework. However, the relative effects of different drivers vary dynamically across scales and contexts, requiring a targeted yet flexible causal framework that compares competing, context-specific hypotheses, incorporates counterfactual cases, and accounts for known and unknown sources of variability. In this Perspective, we explore how biodiversity change attribution could better harness existing and emerging ecological methods to overcome challenges and uncertainties in causal analysis and applications. Attribution can be accomplished either retrospectively or prospectively, using a variety of observational, experimental and process-based modelling approaches. These approaches each have strengths and limitations, and when integrated, they can offer complementary lines of evidence to increase confidence in attribution. Broader adoption of a causal, multivariate and multiscale attribution framework will better equip conservation science to guide actions on drivers and achieve biodiversity targets.

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Fig. 1: Biodiversity change attribution and causal inference.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are supported by European Union’s Horizon Europe under grant agreement no. 101134954 (Obsgession). This research is also a product of the IMPACTS group funded by the Centre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB) of the Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) and the Ministry of Ecological Transition. A.G. is supported by the Liber Ero Chair in Biodiversity Conservation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Grenoble Alpes, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LECA, Grenoble, France

    Anne Thomas & Wilfried Thuiller

  2. Department of Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

    Anne Thomas

  3. Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Andrew Gonzalez

  4. Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Andrew Gonzalez

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  1. Anne Thomas
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Contributions

A.G. and W.T. developed the original concept. All authors designed the structure and outline of the paper. A.T. prepared the initial draft in collaboration with A.G. and W.T. A.T. led subsequent revisions before submission.

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Correspondence to Anne Thomas or Andrew Gonzalez.

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Thomas, A., Thuiller, W. & Gonzalez, A. Complementary causal approaches to support biodiversity change attribution. Nat. Rev. Biodivers. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-026-00146-0

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