Change ecology - gaining broad-scale, timely biodiversity knowledge in a time of uncertainty

澳大利亚人每天都面临着人类过度开采自然资源所带来的变化的后果。我们跟踪和应对变化的能力非常有限和缓慢。因此，生态重要方面的快速恶化被发现得较晚，并且不能反映总体状况，因为知识是从难以概括的小规模测量中获得的。我们将建立一种能力，提供关于植被状况和对生物多样性的流动影响的大规模知识，这也将使我们能够对一些现有的(气候变化、干旱)和即将到来的(生物燃料种植)变化驱动因素的生态后果进行知情评估。

Australians are confronted daily with the consequences of changes wrought by human over-exploitation of natural resources. Our capacity to track and respond to change is very limited and slow. Thus, rapid deterioration of ecologically important aspects is detected late and is not reflective of the general state because knowledge is derived from small-scale measurements that are difficult to generalize. We will build a capacity for providing large-scale knowledge of vegetation condition and flow-on effects on biodiversity, which also will allow us to make informed assessments of the ecological consequences of some existing (climate change, drying) and imminent (biofuel plantings) drivers of change.