Biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems: Translating results from model experiments into functional reality

• Bradley J. Cardinale
• J. Emmett Duffy
• Dave U. Hooper

Abstract
We propose a working group that will advance recent efforts to synthesize one of the fastest growing fields of ecology ‐ Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning. Over the past two decades, more than 200 experiments have examined how the diversity of bacteria, fungi, plants and animals influence important ecosystem processes in habitats throughout the world. Though diversity effects have by no means been universal, recent summaries have revealed considerable generality in how the number of genes, species, and functional groups of organisms impacts the efficiency by which communities process the energy and matter that define how ecosystems ‘function’. These results suggest that modern biodiversity loss may have substantial impacts on the services that ecosystems provide to humanity. But the research remains controversial, in part, because results of often highly simplistic experiments have yet to be translated into meaningful predictions about how biodiversity loss will impact ecological processes in realistic systems at appropriate scales. We will overcome such limitations by accomplishing three goals at this frontier between academic and applied ecology: (1) We will develop quantitative scaling relationships that allow conversion of the results of small‐scale, short‐term experiments into predictions about the fraction of species required to optimize biological processes in more natural ecosystems. (2) We will characterize how biodiversity simultaneously impacts the suite of ecosystem processes that have been measured in past experiments to identify trade‐offs and potential synergisms, and to provide guidance on optimizing the ‘multi‐functionality’ of diverse systems. (3) We will evaluate how the impacts of biodiversity on key ecological processes (e.g., biomass production) can be translated into ecosystem ‘services’ (e.g., CO2 uptake and storage) that can be used to aid decisions in conservation and management.