Complex sustainability problems (e.g., climate change) are challenging to understand and manage, leading to an increase in approaches that connect scholars to society and research to action (collaborative approaches). The transdisciplinary approach (TDA) represents one such approach. While TDA is new to many, there are several prior collaborative approaches including collaborative adaptive management, knowledge integration, participatory action research, and indigenous/local knowledge. Other contemporary and parallel approaches include citizen science, translational science, evidence-based practice, and knowledge with action. The varied disciplinary roots and problem areas contribute to a lack of interaction among these parallel but distinct approaches, and among the scholars and stakeholders who practice them. In this paper, we consider the connections, complementarities and contradictions among these distinct but related collaborative approaches. This review offers insights into the interaction between science and practice, including the importance of social processes and recognition of different ways of knowing, as well as how to conduct collaborative approaches on a variety of scales and think about how to generalize findings. The review suggests a need to rethink roles and relationships in the process of knowledge co-creation, both extending the roles of researchers and practitioners, creating new hybrid roles for “pracademics”, and placing greater awareness on issues of power.

Mountain social‐ecological systems (MtSES) are vital to humanity, providing ecosystem services to over half the planet's human population. Despite their importance, there has been no global assessment of threats to MtSES, even as they face unprecedented challenges to their sustainability. With survey data from 57 MtSES sites worldwide, we test a conceptual model of the types and scales of stressors and ecosystem services in MtSES and explore their distinct configurations according to their primary economic orientation and land use. We find that MtSES worldwide are experiencing both gradual and abrupt climatic, economic, and governance changes, with policies made by outsiders as the most ubiquitous challenge. Mountains that support primarily subsistence‐oriented livelihoods, especially agropastoral systems, deliver abundant services but are also most at risk. Moreover, transitions from subsistence‐ to market‐oriented economies are often accompanied by increased physical connectedness, reduced diversity of cross‐scale ecosystem services, lowered importance of local knowledge, and shifting vulnerabilities to threats. Addressing the complex challenges facing MtSES and catalyzing transformations to MtSES sustainability will require cross‐scale partnerships among researchers, stakeholders, and decision makers to jointly identify desired futures and adaptation pathways, assess trade‐offs in prioritizing ecosystem services, and share best practices for sustainability. These transdisciplinary approaches will allow local stakeholders, researchers, and practitioners to jointly address MtSES knowledge gaps while simultaneously focusing on critical issues of poverty and food security.

The Tibetan Plateau has the largest expanse of high‐elevation permafrost in the world, and it is experiencing climate warming that may jeopardize the functioning of its alpine ecosystems. Many studies have focused on the effects of climate warming on vegetation production and diversity on the Plateau, but their disparate results have hindered a comprehensive, regional understanding. From a synthesis of twelve warming experiments across the Plateau, we found that warming increased aboveground net primary production (ANPP) and vegetation height at sites with permafrost, but ANPP decreased with warming at non‐permafrost sites. Aboveground net primary production responded more negatively to warming under drier conditions, due to both annual drought conditions and warming‐induced soil moisture loss. Decreases in species diversity with warming were also larger at sites with permafrost. These results support the emerging understanding that water plays a central role in the functioning of cold environments and suggest that as ecosystems cross a threshold from permafrost to non‐permafrost systems, ANPP will decrease across a greater proportion of the Tibetan Plateau. This study also highlights the future convergence of challenges from permafrost degradation and grassland desertification, requiring new collaborations among these currently distinct research and stakeholder groups.

Hopping, K. A., C. Yangzong, and J. A. Klein. 2016. Local knowledge production, transmission, and the importance of village leaders in a network of Tibetan pastoralists coping with environmental change. Ecology and Society 21(1):25.http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08009-210125