Investigating the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality: challenges and solutions

Summary Extensive research shows that more species‐rich assemblages are generally more productive and efficient in resource use than comparable assemblages with fewer species. But the question of how diversity simultaneously affects the wide variety of ecological functions that ecosystems perform remains relatively understudied. It presents several analytical and empirical challenges that remain unresolved. In particular, researchers have developed several disparate metrics to quantify multifunctionality, each characterizing different aspects of the concept and each with pros and cons. We compare four approaches to characterizing multifunctionality and its dependence on biodiversity, quantifying (i) magnitudes…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: 1144085, DGE-1144085, 1031061, DEB-1046121
• MR
  Microsoft Research
• V
  Vetenskapsrådet
• DO
  Division of Environmental Biology