The role of conservation in expanding biodiversity research

It has been suggested that current reductions in global biodiversity may impair the functioning of ecosystems. This biodiversity-ecosystem function (BD-EF) hypothesis represents a new avenue of ecological research originating from conservation concerns. However, the subsequent evolution of BD-EF research has reflected academic concerns more than conservation priorities. I suggest three questions for BD-EF research, which would benefit both ecological theory and conservation. (1) Is biodiversity the main driver of ecosystem function? Several experiments show that biodiversity loss is a minor link between habitat change and ecosystem function. (2) How will extinction patterns change BD-EF relationships? Biased extinctions may have additional impacts on ecosystem function, which can be deduced by comparison with random-loss models. (3) Will conserving regional biodiversity conserve local ecosystem function? The answer to this question may differ between saturated and unsaturated communities, and may depend on whether the magnitude or stability of ecosystem function is measured.

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