Developing solutions to restore degraded drylands is one of the largest research challenges of our time. If we are to meet even afraction of the restoration goals outlined in numerous international programs, we need to find ways to catalyze systematicknowledge development across disciplines that generate cost-effective, repeatable, and scalable solutions for our drylandrestoration needs. Ecological models are fundamental to this effort and in this opinion article, we describe the opportunitiesfor building a conceptual understanding of dryland ecosystem function to create realistic systems models to improve seedlingestablishment in restoration. We do this by first discussing trade-offs among different modeling approaches and then discussingspecific recent efforts to develop a systems model for seed enablement for sagebrush steppes systems in the Western UnitedStates. We conclude by outlining broader opportunities for integrating systems models to address related dryland restorationchallenges and emphasizing the potential complementary aspects that conceptual and systems models may represent in ourglobal efforts to mitigate dryland degradation. As outlined in this special issue, creation of practical solutions will requirecareful coordination among diverse disciplines. Systems models have been widely used to transcend disciplines to tackle manyissues in related fields such as conservation biology and global climate change and should be helpful in making progress towardour dryland restoration goals over the coming decades.
