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Humans require multiple services from ecosystems, but it is largely unknown whether trade‐offs between ecosystem functions prevent the realisation of high ecosystem multifunctionality across spatial scales. Here, we combined a comprehensive dataset (28 ecosystem functions measured on 209 forest plots) with a forest inventory dataset (105,316 plots) to extrapolate and map relationships between various ecosystem multifunctionality measures across Europe. These multifunctionality measures reflected different management objectives, related to timber production, climate regulation and biodiversity conservation/recreation. We found that trade‐offs among them were rare across Europe, at both local and continental scales. This suggests a high potential for 'win‐win' forest management strategies, where overall multifunctionality is maximised. However, across sites, multifunctionality was on average 45.8‐49.8% below maximum levels and not necessarily highest in protected areas. Therefore, using one of the most comprehensive assessments so far, our study suggests a high but largely unrealised potential for management to promote multifunctional forests.

Many experiments have shown that local biodiversity loss impairs the ability of ecosystems to maintain multiple ecosystem functions at high levels (multifunctionality). In contrast, the role of biodiversity in driving ecosystem multifunctionality at landscape scales remains unresolved. We used a comprehensive pan-European dataset, including 16 ecosystem functions measured in 209 forest plots across six European countries, and performed simulations to investigate how local plot-scale richness of tree species (α-diversity) and their turnover between plots (β-diversity) are related to landscape-scale multifunctionality. After accounting for variation in environmental conditions, we found that relationships between α-diversity and landscape-scale multifunctionality varied from positive to negative depending on the multifunctionality metric used. In contrast, when significant, relationships between β-diversity and landscape-scale multifunctionality were always positive, because a high spatial turnover in species composition was closely related to a high spatial turnover in functions that were supported at high levels. Our findings have major implications for forest management and indicate that biotic homogenization can have previously unrecognized and negative consequences for large-scale ecosystem multifunctionality

cited By 1; International audience; Metal nanoparticles have attracted broad recent attention as labels for biotechnological systems. Recently, we reported a novel sensitive affinity assay (immunoassay, hybridization test) using colloïdal gold label that was determined by electrochemistry at carbon-based screen-printed electrode (SPE). The high performance of the method is related both to the release of a large number of gold from each nanoparticle anchored in the bioaffinity complex (e.g. ≅2.5 × 105 gold atoms are theoretically contained in a 20-nm spherical gold nanoparticle) and to the sensitive electrochemical method based on the use of microband electrodes. We present here two applications of this approach: a sandwich immunoassay of α-fetoprotein (AFP) and an hybridization test for the detection of human amplified cytomegalovirus DNA (HCMV DNA) fragment which offer great promise for the development of an electrochemical biosensor technology. © 2004 Elsevier SAS. Tous droits réservés.