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Biodiversity enhances many of nature's benefits to people, including the regulation of climate and the production of wood in forests, livestock forage in grasslands and fish in aquatic ecosystems. Yet people are now driving the sixth mass extinction event in Earth's history. Human dependence and influence on biodiversity have mainly been studied separately and at contrasting scales of space and time, but new multiscale knowledge is beginning to link these relationships. Biodiversity loss substantially diminishes several ecosystem services by altering ecosystem functioning and stability, especially at the large temporal and spatial scales that are most relevant for policy and conservation.

Original publication

DOI

10.1038/nature22899

Type

Journal article

Journal

Nature

Publication Date

31/05/2017

Volume

546

Pages

65 - 72

Keywords

Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation of Natural Resources, Environmental Policy, Extinction, Biological, Human Activities, Spatio-Temporal Analysis, Species Specificity