Biodiversity on a Changing Planet | 24 574

Opportunity Information: Apply for 24 574

Biodiversity on a Changing Planet (BoCP) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant program focused on understanding how biodiversity is being reshaped by rapid environmental change, including climate change, and what those shifts mean for the way ecosystems function. The central idea is that biodiversity is not only about how many species exist (taxonomic biodiversity), but also about what organisms do and how their traits, interactions, and roles drive ecosystem processes (functional biodiversity). NSF is emphasizing that biodiversity is being gained, lost, and reorganized in ways that are happening faster than many natural systems have experienced historically, and that these changes are already altering ecosystem stability and resilience. BoCP aims to fund research that can explain these shifts and improve the ability to anticipate future outcomes for ecosystems and the benefits they provide to people.

The program is especially interested in proposals that connect “biodiversity dynamics” to functional biodiversity. Biodiversity dynamics, in this context, refers to changes in the scope, structure, and interactions of biodiversity: for example, how community composition changes as environments warm, how food webs reorganize when key species decline or move, or how invasive species and diseases restructure ecological networks. BoCP wants projects that move beyond documenting change and instead test new, clearly framed hypotheses about mechanisms. That includes examining how environmental pressures alter both taxonomic and functional biodiversity, and also how shifts in functional biodiversity can feed back on the environment itself (for instance, changes in vegetation traits influencing carbon cycling, hydrology, fire regimes, or nutrient dynamics).

A defining feature of BoCP is its requirement for a highly integrative approach. NSF is looking for interdisciplinary work that combines ecological and evolutionary perspectives and explicitly considers multiple spatial and temporal scales. Projects can span from organismal traits to community structure to ecosystem processes, and from recent changes to deep-time perspectives. Proposals that link past, present, and future processes are encouraged, particularly if that integration improves prediction. In practice, this could involve combining modern field studies with phylogenetics, paleoecological records, long-term monitoring, remote sensing, models of species distributions or ecosystem function, and geological or climate datasets. The goal is not just to understand what is changing, but to build a more general, predictive understanding of how functional biodiversity responds to environmental change and how that response shapes planetary resilience.

BoCP is described as a cross-directorate and international program led by NSF, signaling that it is meant to cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries and support larger “grand challenge” style questions in biodiversity science. While the topics may overlap with NSF’s core programs, BoCP distinguishes itself by expecting integration across disciplines, scales, and lines of evidence, with functional biodiversity and shifting biodiversity dynamics under environmental change as the unifying theme. Proposals that primarily sit within a single traditional area without that integrative framing may be less aligned with what the program is trying to accomplish.

The program supports both US-only collaborative proposals and internationally partnered proposals through formal arrangements with specific funding agencies: the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) in Brazil, and the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. For these international collaborations, the expectation is joint submission: US principal investigators submit to NSF, while the partner investigators submit to their respective national agencies. These formal partnerships do not prevent additional international collaborators, but the solicitation notes there are additional details and requirements for those cases.

Eligibility to submit is limited to certain US-based organizations. Eligible applicants include US institutions of higher education (two-year and four-year, including community colleges) that are accredited and have a US campus, submitting on behalf of faculty members. Also eligible are non-profit, non-academic organizations such as independent museums, observatories, research laboratories, professional societies, and similar US-based entities that are directly tied to education or research activities. If a proposal involves funding to an international branch campus of a US institution (including via subawards or consultants), the proposal must clearly explain why conducting work at the international branch campus benefits the project and why the activities cannot be performed at the US campus.

From the opportunity details provided, BoCP is an NSF discretionary grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number 24-574) in the science and technology research and development category, associated with CFDA numbers 47.050 and 47.074. The original closing date is September 5, 2024. NSF anticipates making about 12 awards; an award ceiling is not specified in the provided text. Overall, the program is best read as a call for ambitious, collaborative, hypothesis-driven biodiversity science that can explain and predict how environmental change is reorganizing life on Earth and altering the functions ecosystems perform.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Biodiversity on a Changing Planet" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.050, 47.074.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-05-17.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-09-05. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 12 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

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