Quantifying the evidence for biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning and services.

By P. Balvanera, A. Pfisterer, Nina Buchmann, Jing He, T. Nakashizuka, D. Raffaelli, Barbara C. Schmid. Ecology Letters, 2006

2,616 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Concern is growing about the consequences of biodiversity loss for ecosystem functioning, for the provision of ecosystem services, and for human well being. Experimental evidence for a relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem process rates is compelling, but the issue remains contentious. Here, we present the first rigorous quantitative assessment of this relationship through meta-analysis of experimental work spanning 50 years to June 2004. We analysed 446 measures of biodiversity effects (252 in grasslands), 319 of which involved primary producer manipulations or measurements. Our analyses show that: biodiversity effects are weaker if biodiversity manipulations are less well controlled; effects of biodiversity change on processes are weaker at the ecosystem compared with the community level and are negative at the population level; productivity-related effects decline with increasing number of trophic links between those elements manipulated and those measured; biodiversity effects on stability measures ('insurance' effects) are not stronger than biodiversity effects on performance measures. For those ecosystem services which could be assessed here, there is clear evidence that biodiversity has positive effects on most. Whilst such patterns should be further confirmed, a precautionary approach to biodiversity management would seem prudent in the meantime.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/85a4155ee7d04554df0821d28a7a1fe0469beda3

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Citations in the corpus

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Biodiversity‐ecosystem function research: Insights gained from streams (2010, background): “A quick look at the most comprehensive literature dataset available corroborates this statement, as it included nearly five times more studies on terrestrial ecosystems than freshwaters (Balvanera et al., 2006).”
Effects of ecological compensation meadows on arthropod diversity in adjacent intensively managed grassland (2010, background): “…higher arthropod species richness in ECA-meadows might be explained by a bottomup effect of plant species richness on primary consumer diversity, which in turn may have facilitated the observed increase in spider species richness at the third trophic level (Siemann, 1998; Balvanera et al., 2006).”
Functional diversity affects decomposition processes in experimental grasslands (2008, background): “There is now ample evidence for such biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships, with generally strong positive effects of plant diversity on primary production, accompanied by higher nutrient uptake with depletion of soil resources in diverse systems (see recent reviews by Hooper et al. 2005;”
Forest biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services (2017, background): “There is also increasing evidence that the provision of ecosystem services is related to aspects of biodiversity; there is a positive relationship between biodiversity and most ecosystem services (e.g., Hooper et al. 2005; Balvanera et al. 2006; Isbell et al. 2011; Gamfeldt et al. 2013).”
Herbivore and pollinator responses to grassland management intensity along experimental changes in plant species richness (2012, background): “Several studies have shown positive effects of plant species richness on ecosystem functions provided by higher trophic levels (Zak et al., 2003; Balvanera et al., 2006; Cardinale et al., 2006a; Scherber et al., 2010) as well as negative effects of intensive management on higher trophic levels and t”
Soil fauna feeding activity in temperate grassland soils increases with legume and grass species richness (2011, background): “In a comprehensive meta-analysis, increasing plant species richness was shown to generally affect decomposer activity positively (Balvanera et al., 2006).”
An improved model to predict the effects of changing biodiversity levels on ecosystem function (2013, background): “Loss of biodiversity can influence ecosystem functioning in natural and experimental systems, and across habitats and trophic levels (Balvanera et al. 2006; Cardinale et al. 2006, 2009; Hooper et al. 2012; Reich et al. 2012).”
Species diversity and productivity: why do results of diversity‐manipulation experiments differ from natural patterns? (2009, background): “This research has thus far revealed generally positive effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning and in particular positive effects of plant species diversity on primary productivity (Balvanera et al. 2006; Cardinale et al. 2006, 2007).”
A trait-based approach to comparative functional plant ecology: concepts, methods and applications for agroecology. A review (2012, background): “…has been the subject of a lively debate over the past two decades (for recent syntheses, see, e.g. Loreau et al. 2001; Hooper et al. 2005; Balvanera et al. 2006; Cardinale et al. 2006; Cardinale et al. 2007; Naeem et al. 2009), and there is now a growing consensus that EP depends more on…”
Projected climate change and the changing biogeography of coastal Mediterranean fishes (2013, background): “Species richness has been demonstrated to be a major driver of ecosystem functioning in a wide range of biomes (Balvanera et al., 2006).”