Our Aloft Ecosystem Guide tells you how ecosystems work in Aloft and what you need to do to repair the health of an island's environment.

How Ecosystems Work in Aloft
The Aloft ecosystem feature applies to every island in the game, including your home island ship. The ecosystem is a measure of the health of an island's environment.
Ecosystems have six metrics which can be viewed with an equipped Field guide:
- Tree Amount: Each island needs to have a certain number of trees.
- Flora Diversity: Islands must have a certain number of different types of plants. Bear in mind that this counts different types of plants, and not a total number of plants as with trees.
- Decomposer Amount: Islands must have some decomposers, typically Reishi Mushrooms planted at the base of trees.
- Animal Amount: Islands must have a certain total number of animals living on them.
- Insect Diversity: Islands require a certain number of different insect species.
- Problems: Some islands may have problems such as Corruption or Sick Trees.
Not every island requires all of these things. For example, an island may require zero total animals.
All of these metrics combine to make up the ecosystem health measurement shown at the top right of the Field Guide. If an ecosystem is unhealthy, you are unable to interact with any Knowledge objects or loot any of the natural resources until the ecosystem is restored.
Finally, I should remind you that the ecosystem applies to your home island ship as well. You'll need to have a certain number of trees, flora types, decomposers, animals, and insects for your home island to remain healthy!

How to Repair an Aloft Ecosystem
You can repair an Aloft ecosystem by maxing out all of the core five stats listed in the Field Guide and removing any problems (which are typically Sick Trees, Corruption, or broken Bird Houses). Sick Trees simply need to be cut down, and Corruption can only be cleared by destroying all of the Corruption Nodes on an island.
Pretty much any tree can be planted on most islands. Flora, however, is biome-specific, and you'll need the correct type of wild seeds to improve the Flora metric. You can collect wild seeds for a biome by slashing plants with a Sickle.
Getting more Decomposers can be a little difficult; you'll need to collect wild Reishi Mushrooms and process them in a Millstone to make Reishi Inoculant; you can then apply Reishi Inoculant to trees on the island.
Animals are one of the most challenging things to fix; you'll need to move animals onto the island from your own home island ship or another nearby island. This will require you to park your home island ship right next to the affected island so you can manually transport the animals onto the island.
Alternatively, you can build a Bird House once you've learned the recipe; this will count as "Animals" in the Field Guide.
Finally, there are Insects to consider; you can collect Insects on other islands and keep them in your inventory. If a new island you're visiting needs Insects, you simply need to release them from your inventory.
Once an ecosystem is healthy, you'll be able to interact with Knowledge objects, collect natural resources, and loot the island for whatever you might want.
Thanks for checking out our Aloft Ecosystem Guide. Take a peek at our other guides below!