title: Biodiversity and Resilience of Ecosystem Functions.
abstract: Accelerating rates of environmental change and the continued loss of global biodiversity threaten functions and services delivered by ecosystems. Much ecosystem monitoring and management is focused on the provision of ecosystem functions and services under current environmental conditions, yet this could lead to inappropriate management guidance and undervaluation of the importance of biodiversity. The maintenance of ecosystem functions and services under substantial predicted future environmental change (i.e., their 'resilience') is crucial. Here we identify a range of mechanisms underpinning the resilience of ecosystem functions across three ecological scales. Although potentially less important in the short term, biodiversity, encompassing variation from within species to across landscapes, may be crucial for the longer-term resilience of ecosystem functions and the services that they underpin.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AH, UK; NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK. Electronic address: t.oliver@reading.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Tom H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Oliver
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK.
authors.forename: Matthew S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Heard
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK.
authors.forename: Nick J B
authors.initials: NJB
authors.lastname: Isaac
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK.
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Roy
authors.affiliation: Joint Nature Conservation Committee, UK.
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Procter
authors.affiliation: University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Felix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Eigenbrod
authors.affiliation: University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Freckleton
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hector
authors.affiliation: Imperial College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: C David L
authors.initials: CDL
authors.lastname: Orme
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Owen L
authors.initials: OL
authors.lastname: Petchey
authors.affiliation: Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: Vânia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Proença
authors.affiliation: University of York, York, UK.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Raffaelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
authors.forename: K Blake
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Suttle
authors.affiliation: University College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Georgina M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Mace
authors.affiliation: Social-Ecological Systems Laboratory, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Berta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Martín-López
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK.
authors.forename: Ben A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Woodcock
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK.
authors.forename: James M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bullock
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods; D017753:Ecosystem; D005544:Forecasting
keywords: ecosystem services; functional diversity; recovery; redundancy; resistance; risk