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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.

Original publication

DOI

10.1126/science.1064088

Type

Journal article

Journal

Science

Publication Date

26/10/2001

Volume

294

Pages

804 - 808

Keywords

Animals, Ecology, Ecosystem, Environment, Plant Physiological Phenomena