Biodiversity and ecosystem services: A multi-scale empirical study of the relationship between species richness and net primary production

• Published in: Ecological economics 2007-03, Vol.61 (2), p.478-491
• Main Authors: Costanza, Robert, Fisher, Brendan, Mulder, Kenneth, Liu, Shuang, Christopher, Treg
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Ecosystem services; Ecosystems; Empirical research; Environmental economics; Net primary production; North America; Regression analysis; Species; Species richness
• ISSN: 0921-8009; 1873-6106
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.03.021

Biodiversity (BD) and Net Primary Productivity (NPP) are intricately linked in complex ecosystems such that a change in the state of one of these variables can be expected to have an impact on the other. Using multiple regression analysis at the site and ecoregion scales in North America, we estimated relationships between BD (using plant species richness as a proxy) and NPP (as a proxy for ecosystem services). At the site scale, we found that 57% of the variation in NPP was correlated with variation in BD after effects of temperature and precipitation were accounted for. At the ecoregion scale, 3 temperature ranges were found to be important. At low temperatures (− 2.1 °C average) BD was negatively correlated with NPP. At mid-temperatures (5.3 °C average) there was no correlation. At high temperatures (13 °C average) BD was positively correlated with NPP, accounting for approximately 26% of the variation in NPP after effects of temperature and precipitation were accounted for. The general conclusion of positive links between BD and ecosystem functioning from earlier experimental results in micro and mesocosms was qualified by our results, and strengthened at high temperature ranges. Our results can also be linked to estimates of the total value of ecosystem services to derive an estimate of the value of the biodiversity contribution to these services. We tentatively conclude from this that a 1% change in BD in the high temperature range (which includes most of the world's BD) corresponds to approximately a 1/2% change in the value of ecosystem services.