Recognizing that environmental challenges are complex and their solutions require diverse perspectives, IGCB seeks to develop scientific collaborations between researchers from across disciplines at the University of Michigan and the globe through a variety of Working Groups. Research on plants, animals and/or microbes, including the biogeochemical cycles they rely on and alter, is encouraged. We define global change as including rising CO2, climate change, nitrogen deposition, land use change, biodiversity loss, biotic invasion, urbanization, globalization and more. We seek to identify and fill knowledge gaps that presently limit our ability to anticipate biological and ecological changes in natural and coupled human-natural systems driven by anthropogenic forces of global change.