List or Research Questions developed as part of The Future of Synthesis in Ecology and Environmental Science Virtual workshop (February 17th & 18th, 2021)

Here is the list of research questions and themes that we, as members of the research community, developed to begin to prioritize the future synthesis needs in ecology and environmental science. To develop these priorities, we convened a virtual workshop at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) on Feb 17-18, 2021, with 127 participants across career stages, institutions, backgrounds, and geographies which were selected through an application process (see Halpern et al. 2022, Appendix S1). Participants were drawn from ecology and environmental sciences and largely identified as natural scientists. We asked workshop participants to anonymously identify key synthesis questions in ecology and environmental science, and the challenges and innovations needed to answer those questions. Participants proposed ideas or questions in pre-workshop brainstorming sessions; added and upvoted questions online; and worked in breakout teams during the workshop to refine upvoted questions into lists of top three questions. These final lists were then grouped into themes by the 12-person steering committee and discussed at length by the workshop participants.