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Migratory fishes exert important influences on tropical river food webs, but these species are often most vulnerable to environmental change. Movement patterns of fishes in tropical rivers are also generally poorly understood, hindering conservation efforts.

Biodiversity collections are experiencing a renaissance fueled by the intersection of informatics, emerging technologies, and the extended use and interpretation of specimens and archived databases. In this article, we explore the potential for transformative research in ecology integrating biodiversity collections, stable isotope analysis (SIA), and environmental informatics. Like genomic DNA, SIA provides a common currency interpreted in the context of biogeochemical principles. Integration of SIA data across collections allows for evaluation of long-term ecological change at local to continental scales. Challenges including the analysis of sparse samples, a lack of information about baseline isotopic composition, and the effects of preservation remain, but none of these challenges is insurmountable. The proposed research framework interfaces with existing databases and observatories to provide benchmarks for retrospective studies and ecological forecasting. Collections and SIA add historical context to fundamental questions in freshwater ecological research, reference points for ecosystem monitoring, and a means of quantitative assessment for ecosystem restoration.

Rapidly growing cities along the Interstate‐85 corridor from Atlanta, GA, to Raleigh, NC, rely on small rivers for water supply and waste assimilation. These rivers share commonalities including water supply stress during droughts, seasonally low flows for wastewater dilution, increasing drought and precipitation extremes, downstream eutrophication issues, and high regional aquatic diversity. Further challenges include rapid growth; sprawl that exacerbates water quality and infrastructure issues; water infrastructure that spans numerous counties and municipalities; and large numbers of septic systems. Holistic multi‐jurisdiction cooperative water resource planning along with policy and infrastructure modifications is necessary to adapt to population growth and climate. We propose six actions to improve water infrastructure resilience: increase water‐use efficiency by municipal, industrial, agricultural, and thermoelectric power sectors; adopt indirect potable reuse or closed loop systems; allow for water sharing during droughts but regulate inter‐basin transfers to protect aquatic ecosystems; increase nutrient recovery and reduce discharges of carbon and nutrients in effluents; employ green infrastructure and better stormwater management to reduce nonpoint pollutant loadings and mitigate urban heat island effects; and apply the CRIDA framework to incorporate climate and hydrologic uncertainty into water planning.

Novel in their scope and intensity, human‐mediated changes in genetic diversity through directed gene transfer technologies and longer standing human‐driven selective pressures, such as land‐use change, species introductions, mass extinctions, and broad application of antibiotics, are combining to reorganize mechanisms of evolution. The evolutionary consequences of anthropogenic change can be observed across levels of biological organization and are influencing the rate of micro‐ and macroevolutionary changes, as well as feedback among them. This may have large‐scale effects on the provisioning of ecosystem services, food security, and human health. Here, we summarize several of the ecological implications of human modification of evolutionary dynamics, focusing specifically on emerging molecular technologies, to highlight some of the challenges in predicting subsequent changes in the world’s ecosystems.