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Most ecological processes now show responses to anthropogenic climate change. In terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, species are changing genetically, physiologically, morphologically, and phenologically and are shifting their distributions, which affects food webs and results in new interactions. Disruptions scale from the gene to the ecosystem and have documented consequences for people, including unpredictable fisheries and crop yields, loss of genetic diversity in wild crop varieties, and increasing impacts of pests and diseases. In addition to the more easily observed changes, such as shifts in flowering phenology, we argue that many hidden dynamics, such as genetic changes, are also taking place. Understanding shifts in ecological processes can guide human adaptation strategies. In addition to reducing greenhouse gases, climate action and policy must therefore focus equally on strategies that safeguard biodiversity and ecosystems. 

The impacts of climate change on marine fisheries have major consequences for human so- cieties because these currently provide ~17% of the global protein for people. Impacts on plant genetics and physiology are influencing human agricultural systems. For example, yields in rice, maize, and coffee have declined in response to the combined effects of rising temperatures and increasing precipita- tion variability over past decades. Pollination is a key process linked to yields for a large number of crops. The short-lived, highly mobile insect species that provide pollination ser- vices to numerous crops have responded rapidly to changing climates by shifting their ranges throughout North America and Europe. Several native insect species from North America, with no prior records of severe infestation, have recently emerged as severe pathogens of forest resources because of changes in population dynamics. We must also recognize the role that intact natural ecosystems, particularly large areas, play in overcoming the challenges that climate change presents, not only as important reposi- tories for carbon but also because of their ability to buffer and regulate local climate regimes and help human populations adapt to climate change.   

Equitable gender representation is an important aspect of scientific workforce development to secure a sufficient number of individuals and a diversity of perspectives. Biology is the most gender equitable of all scientific fields by the marker of degree attainment, with 52.5% of PhDs awarded to women. However, equitable rates of degree completion do not translate into equitable attainment of faculty or postdoctoral positions, suggesting continued existence of gender inequalities. In a national cohort of 336 first-year PhD students in the biological sciences (i.e., microbiology, cellular biology, molecular biology, develop- mental biology, and genetics) from 53 research institutions, female participants logged significantly more research hours than males and were significantly more likely than males to attribute their work hours to the demands of their assigned projects over the course of the academic year. Despite this, males were 15% more likely to be listed as authors on published journal articles, indicating inequality in the ratio of time to credit. Given the cumulative advantage that accrues for students who publish early in their graduate careers and the central role that scholarly productivity plays in academic hiring decisions, these findings collectively point to a major potential source of persisting underrepresentation of women on university faculties in these fields. 

Our results show that, after controlling for variance at the institutional level, men spend significantly less time engaging in supervised research, are less likely to attribute their time allocation to the demands of assigned tasks, and are 15% more likely to author published journal articles than their female counterparts per 100 hours of research time. Collectively, these findings suggest that gender inequality manifests in the form of differential time-to-credit payoff as early as the first year of doc- toral training. The men in our sample were better able to procure or were provided with better opportunities to capitalize on publishing prospects as a function of time spent on research than their female counterparts despite the reverse trend for time spent on research. These results provide convergent evidence for the conclusions of Smith et al. (2013), who found that female graduate students perceive a greater investment of effort to be necessary for success in their academic programs compared with their male counterparts. Although perceived effort and time invested are not identical constructs, it is possible that experiences of discrepant time-to-publication ratios may contribute to such beliefs. 

The military is and must be predicated on the notion that everyone who trains together will deploy together. Otherwise, training with the same people day in and day out serves no practical purpose. Unforeseen absences due to illness or injury cannot help but affect a unit’s ability to perform its tasks as a unit. In hard-charging combat units, soldiers and Marines will often suffer with pain and forgo medical treatment precisely to avoid being released from duty. One distinction between pregnancy and an unforeseen illness or injury is that a pregnant woman cannot simply “suck it up”; pregnancy requires that a woman be removed from duty. In addition, pregnancy and problems associated with menstruation can hardly be considered random or accidental events that could happen to any soldier. No comparable, or separate but equal, set of “disabilities” renders males non-deployable. Consequently, it becomes virtually impossible to convince men that women’s gender will not render them a liability at some point. The concern will always lurk that women could be absent for prolonged, and thus potentially critical, periods of time. We see the effects of such expectations in, for instance, the corporate world, which—rightly or wrongly— has long presumed that women of child- bearing age are less dependable than men. The fact that women do avail themselves of maternity leave, surrender high-status positions after giving birth, or quit their careers entirely merely confirms many men’s suspicions that women’s priorities—and loyalties—will shift.

Comfort on teams comes from sameness. Everyone works the same, gets treated the same, treats everyone else the same. It is not only responsibilities that are divided up, but danger and reward as well.  Unfortunately, there is nothing quantifiable about human bonding, and as a result, the “glue” within units tends to be ignored.  No one talks in terms of units as the unit to measure or analyze, although it is units, not individuals, that are marshalled into battle, sent against the enemy, and expected to hold the line. Nevertheless, sound arguments can be made concerning the ineffable importance of bonding, cohesion, and morale to the performance of units, and indeed must be made if common sense is to prevail over ideology. Cohesion should be regarded as the most serious obstacle to gender integration precisely because no structure can guarantee it, though certain known factors will surely inhibit or disrupt it. Solidarity derives from complex organic processes. Perhaps the fact that most militaries have excluded females from combat is nothing more than a coincidence of universal proportions.  So far, no military anywhere has improved upon male bonding as the fundamental building block of unit cohesion. 

Women’s underrepresentation in leadership roles in organisations has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Much of this focus centres on how women need to change in order to fit into organisations. This approach, often called ‘fixing the women’, has been criticised because it leaves systems and structures in organisations unchallenged. Instead of changing women, it is organisational practices that need to change. This means that women as well as men have to engage reflectively with working practices. As men constitute 70% of managers and leaders in organisations (International Labour Organization 2015), men in leadership roles are central to changing gender relations at work by altering their workplace practices. However, men’s relevance and responsibility for gender change in the workplace is often ignored. How men as middle managers can contribute to gender parity is therefore a greatly neglected topic in practitioner and academic research.

While great strides have been taken to make workplaces more gender equal, gender inequality is perpetuated by many subtle workplace practices. We are talking here about the classic examples of a woman’s comment being ignored in a meeting or someone who looks exactly like others in the organisation being hired (Wittenberg-Cox & Maitland 2008). These subtle practices erode women’s motivation to remain in the workplace and limit their chances for career advancement. However, an individual woman has limited leeway to challenge this. Therefore, male middle managers play a pivotal role for two reasons. First, their hierarchical position means that they translate the strategic direction they receive from the top to their immediate environment. Middle managers could translate the aim for gender parity that many CEOs espouse into their immediate environment by changing daily interactions around gender. Second, if 70% of middle managers are men, this numerical majority could effectively progress change. This dual role of male middle managers is a powerful tool to effect change toward gender parity in organisations.