Bridging Science and Policy: A Global Review of Socio-ecological Indicators Guiding Biodiversity Action

Cristian A. Cruz-Rodríguez, Nicolas Urbina-Cardona, María Cecilia Londoño Murcia, Timothée Poisot 

1. Biodiversity continues to decline despite a proliferation of indicators intended to inform conservation policy. We asked which socio-ecological indicators are actually reaching decision-makers, how they are used, and where critical gaps persist.
2. Following a scoping-review protocol and PRISMA workflow, we screened 906 documents in Web of Science and Scopus and analyzed 43 studies that explicitly linked indicators, biodiversity targets and policy processes.
3. Most indicators (54%) rely on landscape-level data, primarily using land-cover proxies as biodiversity surrogates. Ecosystem-level scale dominates over population-species studies, while genetic studies were not identified. Remote sensing (n=23) and economic variables (n=25) were frequently integrated, though evidence for their comparative policy uptake remains limited. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment dominates as the most conceptual framework used (n=18 of 43 studies), whereas Post-2020 Global Biodiversity (n=1 of 43 studies) remains largely confined to theoretical discourse rather than practical application. Local scales predominated (53% of studies), with subnational applications adding another 23%, creating potential mismatches with national biodiversity targets. Local Communities' participation was more evident in the Global South, making up 21.2%, emphasizing community-driven engagement. In the Global North, participation mainly involved academics and civil servants as experts (15.7%), reflecting a more formal, technical approach.
4. We conclude that accelerating the uptake of socio-ecological indicators requires: (i) improved long-term socio-ecological time series and monitoring systems to address widespread data limitations; (ii) expanding beyond land-cover proxies to span scales from genetic to ecosystem-based metrics; (iii) developing multi-scale integration approaches that bridge local applications with national biodiversity targets; and (iv) institutionalizing stakeholder engagement in indicator development, particularly incorporating local and Indigenous knowledge systems. To enable the next step—from documenting indicator availability to assessing the effectiveness of decision-making processes—future syntheses should also systematically capture the conditions of use (decision arena, institutional mandates, accountability, capacity, and incentives), the depth and timing of participation across the indicator cycle, and transparent effectiveness criteria (e.g., salience, credibility, legitimacy, and equity) that allow influence on real decisions and downstream outcomes to be traced rather than inferred. Closing these gaps would shift indicators from predominantly academic exercises toward actionable policy instruments that genuinely inform biodiversity decisions.