title: Observational natural history and morphological taxonomy are indispensable for future challenges in biodiversity and conservation.
abstract: Global biodiversity is rapidly declining, leading inevitably to a loss of ecosystem functionality when species and their associated life-history traits vanish. Unfortunately, even in the 21(st) century, a large proportion of Earth's species are yet unknown and also for most described species science lacks a deeper understanding of the functional role of species and thus of ecosystems. In this Addendum we use the recent discovery of a new spider wasp with a unique natural history as an example to emphasize the importance to conduct basic observational natural history and traditional taxonomic research. We aim to encourage such 'old-fashioned' research and biologists from various research fields to report the many fascinating phenomena holding valuable natural history information they may encounter. Such detailed knowledge on species, their life-history traits, and their trophic interactions will be crucial to reliably address the challenges global change brings to the persistence of ecosystems.
authors: Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology; Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences ; University of Freiburg ; Freiburg, Germany.
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Staab
authors: Museum für Naturkunde; Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity ; Berlin, Germany.
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Ohl
authors: Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution; Institute of Zoology ; Chinese Academy of Sciences ; Beijing, PR China.
authors: Chao-Dong
authors: CD
authors: Zhu
authors: Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology; Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences ; University of Freiburg ; Freiburg, Germany.
authors: Alexandra-Maria
authors: AM
authors: Klein
keywords: BEF-China; ecosystem functioning; global change; integrative taxonomy; species extinctions; species interactions; trait characteristics