In conclusion, to tackle the ongoing and accelerating impacts of humans on biodiversity, we must provide a mechanistic understanding of how these impacts cause changes in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. Our process-based approach developed here may be useful for mitigating many impacts of global change for several key reasons. First, focusing on the real-world processes which create the diversity and structure of communities creates a mechanistic bridge between a given human impact, such as climate warming, and the outcome of this process on assemblages, such as increased turnover or decreased diversity. Second, it provides a foundation for further research, especially quantitative comparisons and mechanistic models. Thus, in the same way that these processes are meant to open the ’black box’ of community ecology to understand community patterns (Vellend 2010), our approach has the potential to do the same for understanding the mechanistic pathways by which humans impact Earth’s biodiversity.