Collaborating for Change: Morpho 2025

NCEAS is excited to announce two new Morpho working groups for 2025—Nature Health Index and GO FISH (Guidelines On core data for climate-resilient inland FISHeries)—selected for their innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to promote science for solutions.

Addressing today’s most complex environmental challenges demands collaboration that reaches across traditional boundaries. The Morpho synthesis initiative, launched by NCEAS in 2022, was designed to do just that: creating space for researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers from diverse sectors to co-develop data-driven answers to global ecological problems.

At its core, Morpho is built on transdisciplinary collaboration, an approach that integrates perspectives from science, policy, management, and local practice. By convening experts from nonprofits, universities, government agencies, and other institutions, Morpho fosters shared understanding and solutions that are both scientifically rigorous and ready for real-world application.

In 2025, Morpho continues to build on that vision with two new working groups: Nature Health Index and GO FISH. These teams bring together international experts and institutions to confront pressing ecological questions of how to measure the health of our ecosystems and how to ensure the sustainability of inland fisheries in a rapidly changing world.

Nature Health Index: Measuring the Pulse of the Planet

Ecosystems across the planet are losing their vitality, and biodiversity is vanishing at an alarming rate. Recognizing the urgent need for better ways to measure and restore ecosystem health, four of the world’s largest conservation NGOs—Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Conservation International (CI), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) — are joining forces to lead the way forward.

Led by Rachel Neugarten (WCS), Lee Hannah (CI), Becky Chaplin-Kramer (WWF), and Christina Kennedy (TNC), the Nature Health Index working group will develop a global, scientifically robust, and practical way to measure ecological integrity (the structure, function, and composition of ecosystems) across the world’s major biomes.

An index is a quantitative tool that combines multiple indicators into a single measure, helping scientists and decision-makers assess complex phenomena at a glance. In this case, the Nature Health Index will integrate diverse ecological data—ranging from satellite imagery to on-the-ground biodiversity surveys—to provide an overall “score” for the health of ecosystems such as forests, grasslands, mangroves, rivers, and coral reefs. This standardized approach will make it possible to compare ecosystem health across regions and track changes over time. This approach has been successfully utilized at NCEAS with the Ocean Health Index and the Wildlife Resilience Index  which serve as research and policy tools, to help us better understand our oceans and landscapes.

“Our goal is to help governments, companies, and donors who currently don't have a way to measure the impact of conservation and restoration on ecosystem health (ecological integrity) at large spatial scales,” explains Neugarten. “We plan to do this by developing global, updatable, spatially explicit datasets that estimate ecosystem health for major ecosystem types (e.g. forests, grasslands, mangroves, rivers, coral reefs), building on globally available spatial datasets.”

Existing measures of ecosystem integrity often fall short: global “top-down” indices overlook local variation, while local “bottom-up” efforts are difficult to scale. The Nature Health Index will bridge this gap by combining the best of both worlds to produce  scalable, biome-specific indicators of nature’s health that can guide conservation investments and policy worldwide.

“A big part of the Global Biodiversity Framework is measuring the conservation of high integrity ecosystems and the restoration of ecosystems to improve their integrity - yet we lack clear, standardized metrics for measuring that integrity,” says Chaplin-Kramer.

Over the next two years, the team will convene scientists, data experts, and early-career researchers to synthesize ecological datasets, develop biome-specific integrity indicators, and pilot methods for integrating them into a unified “Nature Health Index.” Their findings will inform global conservation priorities and improve how ecological health is tracked and reported.

GO FISH: Setting Standards for Climate-Resilient Inland Fisheries

While ocean ecosystems often dominate global conversations about fisheries, inland fisheries (those found in rivers, lakes, and wetlands) are vital for food security and livelihoods for billions of people worldwide. Yet, inland fisheries are also some of the most threatened taxa globally and face numerous and often confounding threats. Importantly, data gaps, in part from the highly dispersed and predominantly subsistence nature of inland fisheries, and lack of a standardized assessment method have long hindered sustainable management.

Led by Gretchen Stokes (University of Florida / Baylor University) and Abigail Lynch (U.S. Geological Survey National Climate Adaptation Science Center*), the GO FISH  (Guidelines On core data for climate-resilient inland FISHeries) working group seeks to change that by identifying the core data needed to manage and assess inland fisheries in a changing climate.

“With ever diminishing resources, we need to find ways to do more with less,” the team says. “The goal of this project is to determine the minimum monitoring needs for inland fisheries to accurately track them and inform sustainable management,” says Lynch.

The project builds on a recently developed global inland fisheries index (‘InFindex’) which uses remote sensing and expert input to estimate threats to inland fisheries and their habitats. GO FISH will link satellite-based data with in-situ (on-the-ground) data from some of the most important inland fisheries globally - including the Amazon, the Mekong, and Lake Victoria - to identify what local measurements are most essential for assessing and monitoring fisheries.

“This is an unparalleled opportunity to bring together interdisciplinary experts from nearly a dozen countries representing the full arc from resource users to decision-makers,” explains the team. “It’s about ensuring that outputs are not only relevant and important but ready to be implemented,” says Stokes.

By integrating data sources, establishing globally applicable data standards, and developing open-source tools for fisheries assessment, GO FISH will strengthen local management and inform upcoming international efforts such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s integrated basin assessments and the Global Inland Fisheries Summit. It will also contextualize data needs within future climate scenarios to help build socio-ecological adaptation strategies for climate-resilient fisheries. 

Morpho’s mission is to bring diverse teams together to tackle complex environmental questions using synthesis, innovation, and data-driven approaches. Both Nature Health Index and GO FISH exemplify that spirit by uniting scientists, policymakers, and practitioners across continents to address some of the most pressing challenges facing ecosystems and communities.

As Neugarten reflects that, through funding the project, NCEAS is “providing us the opportunity to collaborate and advance this work. Understanding the changing health of ecosystems is essential to guiding future management and tracking progress toward a nature-positive world.”

Lynch and Stokes emphasize that “the mission of NCEAS aligns precisely with an urgent and long-recognized need for inland fisheries - leveraging synthesis and team science to deliver actionable science-based solutions for social and ecological well-being.”

Stay tuned as these new working groups launch their collaborations in late 2025 and chart a path toward a healthier, more resilient planet.

*Lynch is currently on furlough without access to email, due to the lapse in federal government appropriations.