Biodiversity promotes ecosystem functioning despite environmental change

Abstract

Three decades of research have demonstrated that biodiversity can promote the functioning of ecosystems. Yet, it is unclear whether the positive effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning will persist under various types of global environmental change drivers. We conducted a meta‐analysis of 46 factorial experiments manipulating both species richness and the environment to test how global change drivers (i.e. warming, drought, nutrient addition or CO2 enrichment) modulated the effect of biodiversity on multiple ecosystem functions across three taxonomic groups (microbes, phytoplankton and plants). We found that biodiversity increased ecosystem functioning in both ambient and manipulated environments, but often not to the same degree. In particular, biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning were larger in stressful environments induced by global change drivers, indicating that high‐diversity communities were more resistant to environmental change. Using a subset of studies, we also found that the positive effects of biodiversity were mainly driven by interspecific complementarity and that these effects increased over time in both ambient and manipulated environments. Our findings support biodiversity conservation as a key strategy for sustainable ecosystem management in the face of global environmental change.

Multiple anthropogenic pressures eliminate the effects of soil microbial diversity on ecosystem functions in experimental microcosms

“…Biodiversity is fundamental for providing and sustaining ecosystem functions 1 – 6 . The main evidence for the positive effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning comes from experiments with biodiversity manipulation under ambient environmental conditions or a few anthropogenic pressures 1 , 4 , 7 – 9 . However, ecosystems can simultaneously encounter multiple anthropogenic pressures 10 – 13 .…”

“…There is an urgent need to investigate how multiple anthropogenic pressures influence the effects of soil biodiversity on ecosystem functions for a better understanding of the consequence of multiple pressures on ecosystem sustainability. Previous studies suggest that a single or a combination of just a few anthropogenic pressures can regulate the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functions through interspecific interactions 1 , 4 , 7 – 9 . Compared with ambient conditions, there is an even larger positive biodiversity effect on plant biomass production because of an increase in interspecific complementation in the face of a few pressures 4 , 9 .…”

“…Previous studies suggest that a single or a combination of just a few anthropogenic pressures can regulate the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functions through interspecific interactions 1 , 4 , 7 – 9 . Compared with ambient conditions, there is an even larger positive biodiversity effect on plant biomass production because of an increase in interspecific complementation in the face of a few pressures 4 , 9 . Moreover, single pressures, e.g., warming, have been shown to improve interspecific competition among microbes, leading to a decrease in biodiversity effects on biomass production 21 .…”

“…Consequently, a decrease in the abundance of organisms can reduce ecosystem functions delivered by these species 23 , 24 . When population abundance is reduced to a relatively low level, the changes in ecosystem functions will depend on the abundance of the population regardless of biodiversity level 9 , 25 . Therefore, we hypothesize that an increasing number of anthropogenic pressures may progressively decrease the ability of soil biodiversity to promote ecosystem functions by reducing population abundance.…”

Remote sensing-based forest modeling reveals positive effects of functional diversity on productivity at local spatial scale

“…Scaling up BEF relationships remains a major challenge (Gonzalez et al ., 2020). Regarding (2), there have been a number of studies addressing environmental context in BEF studies (see Hong et al ., 2022, for a recent meta-analysis), but few focused on forests. Paquette & Messier (2011), Ratcliffe et al .…”