Browsing by Author "Estay, Sergio A."

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    1000 years of population, warfare, and climate change in pre-Columbian societies of the Central Andes
    (2023) Lima, Mauricio; Gayo, Eugenia M.; Gurruchaga, Andone; Estay, Sergio A.; Santoro, Calogero M.
    Different Andean societies underwent processes of expansion and collapse during propitious or adverse climate conditions, resource boost or depletion along with population variations. Previous studies have emphasized that demographic collapses of polities in the Central Andes Area were triggered by warfare and the negative impacts of fluctuating climate (droughts) on crop productivity. Nevertheless, the interactions between climatic variability, demography and warfare have been less thoroughly evaluated. We develop population dynamic models to test feedback relationships between population growth, climate change and warfare in the Central Andes, where considerable regional hydroclimate variations have occurred over a millennium. Through population models, we found out that the rise and demise of social polities in the northern coast of the Central Andes appear to be a consequence of climate change. In contrast, for the highlands of Peru and the Titicaca basin, population models suggest that warfare intensity has a negative effect on population growth rates.
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    A bug's tale: revealing the history, biogeography and ecological patterns of 500 years of insect invasions
    (2023) Lopez, Daniela N.; Fuentes-Contreras, Eduardo; Ruiz, Cecilia; Ide, Sandra; Estay, Sergio A.
    The arrival of Europeans to the Americas triggered a massive exchange of organisms on a continental scale. This exchange was accelerated by the rapid increase in the movement of people and goods during the 20th century. In Chile, scientific and technical literature contains hundreds of records of non-native insect spe-cies established in different parts of the territory, from the hyperarid Atacama Desert to the Magallanes Region. Here, we analyse temporal trends, taxonomic diversity, biogeographic origin and main impacts of these species on different sectors in Chile from the European arrival to the present. Our task includes a review of old records in museum catalogues, libraries, collections, expedition records and catalogues. Al-most 600 species of non-native insects have been reported to be established in Chile. Introductions started with the very arrival of Europeans to the central valley of Chile and underwent a huge acceleration in the second half of the 20th century. The order Hemiptera was the most prevalent amongst non-native insects. Most species are linked to agriculture and forestry. Species are of Palearctic origin in more than 50% of the records. In terms of temporal trends, the rate of established non-native species shows an abrupt increase at the beginning of the 1950s. This change may be associated with the strong development in agriculture and forestry in Chile after World War II and the increase in intercontinental air traffic. We believe that the understanding of past patterns of introductions is an important component in the design of current policies to minimise the impact of invasive insects.
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    A modeling approach to estimate the historical population size of the Patagonian Kawesqar people
    (2022) Estay, Sergio A.; Lopez, Daniela N.; Silva, Carmen P.; Gayo, Eugenia M.; McRostie, Virginia; Lima, Mauricio
    The study of human-gatherers societies' demography used to be a difficult task due to the lack of direct evidence to support the estimations. This is the case of several human groups from Pacific Patagonia whose historical population size estimations are controversial. This study estimated the historical population size for the Kawesqar people using direct and indirect evidence. Thus, we collated past estimations from experts and encounter rates distribution in time and space to generate a statistical approximation for population size. We used weights to include the reliability of such past estimations under three modeling scenarios. Our results indicate that the historical population ranged roughly between 3700 and 3900 individuals before the massive contact with Chileans and European people. The approach developed here for combining and integrating different evidence for estimating population in Kawesqar people, emerges as a promising and valuable tool to study the demography of other hunter-gatherer societies in South America.
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    Acclimation to daily thermal variability drives the metabolic performance curve
    (2013) Bozinovic, Francisco; Catalan, Tamara P.; Estay, Sergio A.; Sabat, Pablo
    Background: Among the predictions of the effect of future climate change, the impact of thermal conditions at local levels on the physiological performance of individuals and their acclimation capacities is key to understanding animals' responses to global warming.
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    Can suitability indices predict plant growth in the invaded range? The case of Acacias species
    (2023) Silva, Carmen P.; Lopez, Daniela N.; Naulin, Paulette I.; Estay, Sergio A.
    IntroductionForestry in many parts of the world depends on exotic species, making this industry a source of invasions in some countries. Among others, plantations of the genus Pinus, Eucalyptus, Acacia, Populus, and Pseudotsuga underpin the forestry industry and are a vital component of many countries economies. Among woody plants, the cosmopolitan genus Acacia includes some of the most commonly planted trees worldwide. In order to prevent, manage and control invasive plant species, one of the most used tools is species distribution models. The output of these models can also be used to obtain information about population characteristics, such as spatial abundance patterns or species performance. Although ecological theory suggests a direct link between fitness and suitability, this link is often absent. The reasons behind the lack of this relationship are multiple. Chile is one of the countries where Acacia species, in particular, A. dealbata and A. melanoxylon, have become invaders. MethodsHere, we used climatic and edaphic variables to predict thepotentially suitable habitats for A. dealbata and A. melanoxylon in continental Chile and evaluate if the suitability indices obtained from these models are associated with the observed performance of the trees along the country. ResultsOur models show that variable importance showed significant similarities between the variables that characterize each species' niche. However, despite the high accuracy of our models, we did not observe an association between suitability and tree growth. DiscussionThis disconnection between suitability and performance can result from multiple causes, from structural limitations, like the lack of biotic interactions in the models, to methodological issues, like the usefulness of the performance metric used. Whatever the scenario, our results suggest that plans to control invasive species should be cautious in assuming this relationship in their design and consider other indicators such as species establishment success.
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    Disentangling the spread dynamics of insect invasions using spatial networks
    (2023) Estay, Sergio A.; Silva, Carmen P.; Lopez, Daniela N.; Labra, Fabio A.
    Introduction: Describing and understanding spatiotemporal spread patterns in invasive species remains a long-standing interdisciplinary research goal. Here we show how a network-based top-down approach allows the efficient description of the ongoing invasion by Drosophila suzukii in Chile.
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    Distribution, Invasion History, and Ecology of Non-native Pine Bark Beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) in Southern South America
    (2024) Lantschner, Victoria; Gomez, Demian F.; Vilardo, Gimena; Stazione, Leonel; Ramos, Sergio; Eskiviski, Edgar; Fachinetti, Romina; Schiappacassi, Marcela; Vallejos, Natalia; Germano, Monica; Villacide, Jose; Grilli, Mariano P.; Martinez, Gonzalo; Ahumada, Rodrigo; Estay, Sergio A.; Dumois, Ignacio; Corley, Juan
    The growth of international trade, coupled with an expansion of large-scale pine plantations in South America during the second half of the twentieth century, has significantly increased the opportunities for the invasion of forest insects. Bark beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae) are a large and diverse group of insects, commonly recognized as one of the most important tree mortality agents in coniferous forests worldwide and an important group among invasive forest species. In this study, we combined data from field sampling with published records of established non-native pine bark beetles, to describe their distribution and invasion history in pine plantations across southern South America, reviewing the available information on their phenology and host range. We obtained records of established populations of six Eurasian species distributed in two major regions: the southwest region comprises plantations in Chile and the Argentine Patagonia, with four bark beetle species: Hylastes ater, Hylastes linearis, Hylurgus ligniperda, and Orthotomicus laricis; the northeastern zone includes northeastern Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil, and includes three bark beetle species: Cyrtogenius luteus, H. ligniperda, and O. erosus. The establishment of non-native populations across the study area began in the 1950s, and from the 1980s onwards, there has been an exponential increase in introductions. We predict that several of these species will continue spreading across South America and that new species will continue arriving. We highlight the importance of international collaboration for early detection and management of non-native pine bark beetles.
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    Extinction risk assessment of a Patagonian ungulate using population dynamics models under climate change scenarios
    (2020) Riquelme, Carlos; Estay, Sergio A.; Contreras, Rafael; Corti, Paulo
    Climate change affects population cycles of several species, threatening biodiversity. However, there are few long-term studies on species with conservation issues and restricted distributions. Huemul is a deer endemic to the southern Andes in South America and it is considered endangered mostly due to a 50% reduction of its distribution over the last 500 years. To assess environmental variables potentially affecting huemul population viability and the impact of climate change, we developed population dynamics models. We used a 14-year survey data from Bernardo O'Higgins National Park, coastal Chilean Patagonia. We used Ricker models considering winter and spring temperatures and precipitation as variables influencing huemul population dynamics. We used the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) to select models with the greatest predictive power. The two best models (Delta BIC < 2) included winter temperature and density-dependence population growth drivers. The best model considered a lateral effect, where winter temperature influences carrying capacity and the second best a vertical effect with winter temperature influencingR(max)and carrying capacity. Population viability was evaluated using those models, projecting them over a 100-year period: (a) under current conditions and (b) under conditions estimated by Global Climate Models for 2050 and 2070. The extinction risk and quasi-extinction were estimated for this population considering two critical huemul abundance levels (15 and 30 individuals) for persistence. The population is currently in a quasi-extinction process, with extinction probabilities increasing with climate change. These results are crucial for conservation of species like huemul that have low densities and are threatened by climate change.
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    Integrating species and interactions into similarity metrics: a graph theory-based approach to understanding community similarity
    (2019) Lopez, Daniela N.; Camus, Patricio A.; Valdivia, Nelson; Estay, Sergio A.
    Community similarity is often assessed through similarities in species occurrences and abundances (i.e., compositional similarity) or through the distribution of species interactions (i.e., interaction similarity). Unfortunately, the joint empirical evaluation of both is still a challenge. Here, we analyze community similarity in ecological systems in order to evaluate the extent to which indices based exclusively on species composition differ from those that incorporate species interactions. Borrowing tools from graph theory, we compared the classic Jaccard index with the graph edit distance (GED), a metric that allowed us to combine species composition and interactions. We found that similarity measures computed using only taxonomic composition could differ strongly from those that include composition and interactions. We conclude that new indices that incorporate community features beyond composition will be more robust for assessing similitude between natural systems than those purely based on species occurrences. Our results have therefore important conceptual and practical consequences for the analysis of ecological communities.
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    Late Quaternary hydrological and ecological changes in the hyperarid core of the northern Atacama Desert (∼21°S)
    (2012) Gayo, Eugenia M.; Latorre, Claudio; Jordan, Teresa E.; Nester, Peter L.; Estay, Sergio A.; Ojeda, Karla F.; Santoro, Calogero M.
    The hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert possesses important reserves of "fossil" or ancient groundwater, yet the extent and timing of past hydrologic change during the late Quaternary is largely unknown. In situ and/or short-distance transported leaf-litter deposits abound along relict fluvial terraces inserted within four dry and unvegetated valleys that drain into the endorheic basin of Pampa del Tamarugal (PDT, 21 degrees S, 900-1000 m), one of the largest and economically important aquifers in northern Chile. Our exceptional archive offers the opportunity to evaluate the response of low-elevation desert ecological and hydrological systems to late Quaternary climate variability. Three repeated expansions of riparian/wetland ecosystems, and perennial rivers occurred along the southernmost PDT basin between 17.6-14.2 ka, 12.1-11.4 ka and from 1.01-0.71 ka. Both early and late archaic archaeological artefact are present in clear association with our fossil riparian/wetland assemblages, which suggests that these palaeoenvironmental changes facilitated past human occupations in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert. Using modern analogues, we estimate that these ecological and hydrological changes were triggered by a threefold increase in rainfall along the headwaters of what are presently inactive canyons. Comparisons with other regional palaeoclimatic records from the central Andes indicate that these changes were synchronous with the widespread pluvial stages now termed the Central Andean Pluvial Event (CAPE- 17.5-14.2 ka and 13.8-9.7 ka). In addition, we summarize new evidence for perennial runoff, riparian ecosystems and a major human settlement during the latest Holocene. Our findings clearly show that local hydrological changes in the PDT were coupled with precipitation variability in the adjacent eastern highlands during the late Quaternary. The long-term dynamics of low-elevation desert ecological and hydrological systems are likely driven by changes in moisture sources, with one source tied to the Amazon region (N-NE mode) and the other to the Gran Chaco region (SE mode). We conclude by linking ENSO-like variability and moisture variations over the Gran Chaco to the three major regional-scale recharge events over the last 18 ka in the PDT basin. We conclude by asserting that an important portion of the groundwater resources in the PDT is indeed fossil, inherited from past pluvial events. We recommend that the relationship between ancient recharge, together with palaeoclimate records of past headwater rainfall fluctuations should be incorporated into future water-balance models and evaluation of groundwater potential in northern Chile. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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    MODIS Time Series Reveal New Maximum Records of Defoliated Area by Ormiscodes amphimone in Deciduous Nothofagus Forests, Southern Chile
    (2023) Estay, Sergio A.; Chavez, Roberto O.; Lastra, Jose A.; Rocco, Ronald; Gutierrez, Alvaro G.; Decuyper, Mathieu
    Outbreaks of the Ormiscodes amphimone moth are among the largest biotic disturbances in South America, defoliating vast areas of native Nothofagus pumilio forests in the Chilean and Argentinian Patagonia in the last decade. Using MODIS 16-day composites of the enhanced vegetation index and the new functions of the latest release of the "npphen" R-package, we identified new maximum records of continuously defoliated area in the Aysen region (Chilean Patagonia). This approach allowed us to detect 55,193 ha and 62,344 ha of extremely defoliated N. pumilio forest in 2019 and 2022, respectively, in an area locally known as "Mallin Grande". Extreme defoliation was accounted for by means of negative EVI anomalies with values falling among 5% of the lowest EVI records of the reference period (2000-2010). These new 2019 and 2022 outbreaks in Mallin Grande were the largest reported insect outbreaks in South American Patagonia in this century.
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    npphen: An R-Package for Detecting and Mapping Extreme Vegetation Anomalies Based on Remotely Sensed Phenological Variability
    (2023) Chavez, Roberto O.; Estay, Sergio A.; Lastra, Jose A.; Riquelme, Carlos G.; Olea, Matias; Aguayo, Javiera; Decuyper, Mathieu
    Monitoring vegetation disturbances using long remote sensing time series is crucial to support environmental management, biodiversity conservation, and adaptation strategies to climate change from global to local scales. However, it is difficult to assess whether a remotely detected vegetation disturbance is critical or not, since available operational remote sensing methods deliver only maps of the vegetation anomalies but not maps of how "uncommon" or "extreme" the detected anomalies are based on the available records of the reference period. In this technical note, we present a new release of the probabilistic method and its implementation, the npphen R package, designed to detect not only vegetation anomalies from remotely sensed vegetation indices, but also to quantify the position of the anomalous observations within the historical frequency distribution of the phenological annual records. This version of the R package includes two new key functions to detect and map extreme vegetation anomalies: ExtremeAnom and ExtremeAnoMap. The npphen package allows remote sensing users to detect vegetation changes for a wide range of ecosystems, taking advantage of the flexibility of kernel density estimations to account for any shape of annual phenology and its variability through time. It provides a uniform statistical framework to study all types of vegetation dynamics, contributing to global monitoring efforts such as the GEO-BON Essential Biodiversity Variables.
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    Positive feedbacks in deep-time transitions of human populations
    (2024) Lima, Mauricio; Gayo, Eugenia M.; Estay, Sergio A.; Gurruchaga, Andone; Robinson, Erick; Freeman, Jacob; Latorre, Claudio; Bird, Darcy
    Abrupt and rapid changes in human societies are among the most exciting population phenomena. Human populations tend to show rapid expansions from low to high population density along with increased social complexity in just a few generations. Such demographic transitions appear as a remarkable feature of Homo sapiens population dynamics, most likely fuelled by the ability to accumulate cultural/technological innovations that actively modify their environment. We are especially interested in establishing if the demographic transitions of pre-historic populations show the same dynamic signature of the Industrial Revolution transition (a positive relationship between population growth rates and size). Our results show that population growth patterns across different pre-historic societies were similar to those observed during the Industrial Revolution in developed western societies. These features, which appear to have been operating during most of our recent demographic history from hunter-gatherers to modern industrial societies, imply that the dynamics of cooperation underlay sudden population transitions in human societies.This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis'.
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    Recent increase in autumn temperature has stabilized tree growth in forests near the tree lines in Chilean Patagonia
    (2022) Gibson-Carpintero, Stephanie; Venegas-Gonzalez, Alejandro; Urra, Vinci D.; Estay, Sergio A.; Gutierrez, Alvaro G.
    It is widely accepted that global warming is affecting forests near the tree line by increasing tree growth in these cold-limited environments. However, since about 1970, a reduction in tree growth near the tree line has been observed in response to warming and increased drought stress. This reduction in tree growth has been mainly reported in forests of the northern hemisphere but less studied in southern forests. In this study, we investigated tree populations of Nothofagus pumilio located near the arboreal altitudinal limit in the central Patagonian Andes (45-47 degrees S, Aysen region, Chile). In this region, warming has been accompanied by increased drought conditions since the 2000s. We explored whether this climatic variability has promoted or reduced tree growth at the regional scale in tree lines of these broadleaved temperate forests of central Patagonia. We constructed tree-ring chronologies and determined common growth patterns and trends, and then analyzed the influence of recent climate. We detected a significant change in the slope of regional growth trends between the periods 1955-1985 and 1985-2015. We found that positive growth trends in the period 1955-1985 were associated with warmer and drier springs. However, after 1985, we found a stabilization in N. pumilio growth associated with a steady increase in temperature in autumn. Our results support the idea that more frequent warm autumns, with very thin or no snow cover, have stabilized tree growth due to water deficit at the end of the growing season of N. pumilio. The predicted climate change scenario of increasing temperatures and drought in central Patagonia may increase competition among trees for water, particularly at the end of the growing season. Consequently, we could expect a decreasing forest growth trend in central Patagonia, potentially impacting forest dynamics of these southern forests.
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    Snow Cover and Snow Persistence Changes in the Mocho-Choshuenco Volcano (Southern Chile) Derived From 35 Years of Landsat Satellite Images
    (2021) Chavez, Roberto O.; Briceno, Veronica F.; Lastra, Jose A.; Harris-Pascal, Daniel; Estay, Sergio A.
    Mountain regions have experienced above-average warming in the 20th century and this trend is likely to continue. These accelerated temperature changes in alpine areas are causing reduced snowfall and changes in the timing of snowfall and melt. Snow is a critical component of alpine areas - it drives hibernation of animals, determines the length of the growing season for plants and the soil microbial composition. Thus, changes in snow patterns in mountain areas can have serious ecological consequences. Here we use 35 years of Landsat satellite images to study snow changes in the Mocho-Choshuenco Volcano in the Southern Andes of Chile. Landsat images have 30 m pixel resolution and a revisit period of 16 days. We calculated the total snow area in cloud-free Landsat scenes and the snow frequency per pixel, here called "snow persistence" for different periods and seasons. Permanent snow cover in summer was stable over a period of 30 years and decreased below 20 km(2) from 2014 onward at middle elevations (1,530-2,000 m a.s.l.). This is confirmed by negative changes in snow persistence detected at the pixel level, concentrated in this altitudinal belt in summer and also in autumn. In winter and spring, negative changes in snow persistence are concentrated at lower elevations (1,200-1,530 m a.s.l.). Considering the snow persistence of the 1984-1990 period as a reference, the last period (2015-2019) is experiencing a -5.75 km(2) reduction of permanent snow area (snow persistence > 95%) in summer, -8.75 km(2) in autumn, -42.40 km(2) in winter, and -18.23 km(2) in spring. While permanent snow at the high elevational belt (>2,000 m a.s.l.) has not changed through the years, snow that used to be permanent in the middle elevational belt has become seasonal. In this study, we use a probabilistic snow persistence approach for identifying areas of snow reduction and potential changes in alpine vegetation. This approach permits a more efficient use of remote sensing data, increasing by three times the amount of usable scenes by including images with spatial gaps. Furthermore, we explore some ecological questions regarding alpine ecosystems that this method may help address in a global warming scenario.
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    Socioeconomic and environmental contexts of suicidal rates in a latitudinal gradient: Understanding interactions to inform public health interventions
    (2022) Estay, Sergio A.; Ruiz-Aravena, Manuel; Baader, Tomas; Gotelli, Marcelo; Heskia, Cristobal; Olivares, Juan Carlos; Rivera, Gerardo
    Suicide results from complex interactions between biological, psychological, and socioeconomic factors. At the population level, the study of suicide rates and their environmental and social determinants allows us to disentangle some of these complexities and provides support for policy design and preventive actions. In this study we aim to evaluate the associations between environmental and socioeconomic factors and demographically stratified suicide rates on large temporal and spatial scales. Our dataset contains information about yearly suicides rates by sex and age from 2000 through 2017 along a 4000 km latitudinal gradient. We used zero inflated negative binomial models to evaluate the spatio-temporal influence of each environmental and socioeconomic variable on suicide rates at each sex/age combination. Overall, we found differential patterns of associations between suicide rates and explanatory variables by age and sex. Suicide rates in men increases in middle and high latitude regions and intermediate age classes. For adolescent and adult women, we found a similar pattern with an increase in suicide rates at middle and high latitudes. Sex differences measured by the male/female suicide ratio shows a marked increase with age. We found that cloudiness has a positive effect on suicide rates in both men and women 24 years old or younger. Regional poverty shows a major impact on men in age classes above 35 years old, an effect that was absent in women. Alcohol and marijuana consumption showed no significant effect sizes. Our findings support high spatio-temporal variability in suicide rates in interaction with extrinsic factors. Several strong differential impacts of environmental and socioeconomic variables on suicide rates depending on sex and age were detected. These results suggest that the design of public policies and interventions to reduce suicide prevalence need to consider the local social and environmental contexts of target populations.
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    The Mean and Variance of Environmental Temperature Interact to Determine Physiological Tolerance and Fitness
    (UNIV CHICAGO PRESS, 2011) Bozinovic, Francisco; Bastias, Daniel A.; Boher, Francisca; Clavijo Baquet, Sabrina; Estay, Sergio A.; Angilletta, Michael J., Jr.
    Global climate change poses one of the greatest threats to biodiversity. Most analyses of the potential biological impacts have focused on changes in mean temperature, but changes in thermal variance will also impact organisms and populations. We assessed the combined effects of the mean and variance of temperature on thermal tolerances, organismal survival, and population growth in Drosophila melanogaster. Because the performance of ectotherms relates nonlinearly to temperature, we predicted that responses to thermal variation (+/-0 degrees or +/-5 degrees C) would depend on the mean temperature (17 degrees or 24 degrees C). Consistent with our prediction, thermal variation enhanced the rate of population growth (r(max)) at a low mean temperature but depressed this rate at a high mean temperature. The interactive effect on fitness occurred despite the fact that flies improved their heat and cold tolerances through acclimation to thermal conditions. Flies exposed to a high mean and a high variance of temperature recovered from heat coma faster and survived heat exposure better than did flies that developed at other conditions. Relatively high survival following heat exposure was associated with low survival following cold exposure. Recovery from chill coma was affected primarily by the mean temperature; flies acclimated to a low mean temperature recovered much faster than did flies acclimated to a high mean temperature. To develop more realistic predictions about the biological impacts of climate change, one must consider the interactions between the mean environmental temperature and the variance of environmental temperature.
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    The relative role of ecological interactions and environmental variables on the population dynamics of marine benthic polychaetes
    (2018) Labra, Fabio A.; Moreno, Rodrigo A.; Alvarado, Sergio A.; Carrasco, Franklin D.; Estay, Sergio A.; Rivadeneira V., Marcelo M.
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    Towards understanding human-environment feedback loops: the Atacama Desert case
    (2024) Gayo, Eugenia M.; Lima, Mauricio; Gurruchaga, Andone; Estay, Sergio A.; Santoro, Calogero M.; Latorre, Claudio; Mcrostie, Virginia
    The overall trajectory for the human-environment interaction has been punctuated by demographic boom-and-bust cycles, phases of growth/overshooting as well as of expansion/contraction in productivity. Although this pattern has been explained in terms of an interplay between population growth, social upscaling, ecosystem engineering and climate variability, the evoked demographic-resource-complexity mechanisms have not been empirically tested. By integrating proxy data for population sizes, palaeoclimate and internal societal factors into empirical modelling approaches from the population dynamic theory, we evaluated how endogenous (population sizes, warfare and social upscaling) and exogenous (climate) variables module the dynamic in past agrarian societies. We focused on the inland Atacama Desert, where populations developed agriculture activities by engineering arid and semi-arid landscapes during the last 2000 years. Our modelling approach indicates that these populations experienced a boom-and-bust dynamic over the last millennia, which was coupled to structure feedback between population sizes, hydroclimate, social upscaling, warfare and ecosystem engineering. Thus, the human-environment loop appears closely linked with cooperation, competition, limiting resources and the ability of problem-solving.This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis'.