Abstract

The ecological consequences of biodiversity loss have aroused considerable interest and controversy during the past decade. Major advances have been made in describing the relationship between species diversity and ecosystem processes, in identifying functionally important species, and in revealing underlying mechanisms. There is, however, uncertainty as to how results obtained in recent experiments scale up to landscape and regional levels and generalize across ecosystem types and processes. Larger numbers of species are probably needed to reduce temporal variability in ecosystem processes in changing environments. A major future challenge is to determine how biodiversity dynamics, ecosystem processes, and abiotic factors interact.

Keywords

BiodiversityEcosystemEcosystem servicesAbiotic componentEcologyEnvironmental resource managementTotal human ecosystemEcosystem healthEnvironmental scienceGeographyBiology

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Publication Info

Year
2001
Type
review
Volume
294
Issue
5543
Pages
804-808
Citations
4444
Access
Closed

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Michel Loreau, Shahid Naeem, Pablo Inchausti et al. (2001). Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges. Science , 294 (5543) , 804-808. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1064088

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DOI
10.1126/science.1064088