Several scales of biodiversity affect ecosystem multifunctionality

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2013-06, Vol.110 (25), p.10219-10222
• Main Authors: Pasari, Jae R., Levi, Taal, Zavaleta, Erika S., Tilman, David
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; Applied ecology; Biodiversity; Biodiversity conservation; Biological and medical sciences; Biological Sciences; Communities; Computer Simulation; Conservation of Energy Resources; Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife; Ecological function; Ecology; Ecosystem; Ecosystem services; Ecosystem studies; Ecosystems; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Humans; Landscapes; Models, Biological; Social Values; Species; Species diversity; Synecology; Terrestrial ecosystems
• ISSN: 0027-8424; 1091-6490
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1220333110

Society values landscapes that reliably provide many ecosystem functions. As the study of ecosystem functioning expands to include more locations, time spans, and functions, the functional importance of individual species is becoming more apparent. However, the functional importance of individual species does not necessarily translate to the functional importance of biodiversity measured in whole communities of interacting species. Furthermore, ecological diversity at scales larger than neighborhood species richness could also influence the provision of multiple functions over extended time scales. We created experimental landscapes based on whole communities from the world’s longest running biodiversity-functioning field experiment to investigate how local species richness (α diversity), distinctness among communities (β diversity), and larger scale species richness (γ diversity) affected eight ecosystem functions over 10 y. Using both threshold-based and unique multifunctionality metrics, we found that α diversity had strong positive effects on most individual functions and multifunctionality, and that positive effects of β and γ diversity emerged only when multiple functions were considered simultaneously. Higher β diversity also reduced the variability in multifunctionality. Thus, in addition to conserving important species, maintaining ecosystem multifunctionality will require diverse landscape mosaics of diverse communities.