Back to Search Start Over

Reconsidering functional redundancy in biodiversity research

Authors :
Eisenhauer, Nico
Hines, Jes
Maestre, Fernando T.
Rillig, Matthias C.
Universidad de Alicante. Departamento de Ecología
Universidad de Alicante. Instituto Multidisciplinar para el Estudio del Medio 'Ramón Margalef'
Laboratorio de Ecología de Zonas Áridas y Cambio Global (DRYLAB)
Source :
npj Biodiversity. 2
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2023.

Abstract

A key question in ecological research is whether biodiversity is important for ecosystem functioning. After approximately three decades of empirical studies on this topic, it is clear that biodiversity promotes the magnitude and stability of ecosystem functioning. However, the majority of early biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) experiments concluded that there is a saturating relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, seemingly supporting the ‘redundancy hypothesis’ of biodiversity. This hypothesis may suggest that many species can be lost from an ecosystem before any changes in functioning can be detected under the current environmental conditions. Here, we argue that the term functional redundancy (1) may have been overused from an ecological perspective and (2) can be dangerous and misleading in scientific communication. Rather, we propose to use the term ‘functional similarity’, which better highlights the unique contributions of all coexisting species to ecosystem functioning, gradients in niche overlap and has a less negative connotation. In a world where increasing anthropogenic stressors are accelerating biodiversity change and loss and thus threatening ecosystem integrity, important political and societal decisions must be taken to combat the joint climate and biodiversity crisis. We should therefore reconsider and carefully choose terminology in biodiversity science for value-neutral communication. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. We acknowledge support by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation (FZT 118). The Jena Experiment is funded by the German Research Foundation (FOR 5000). F.T.M. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (EUR2022-134048) and Generalitat Valenciana (CIDEGENT/2018/041).

Details

ISSN :
27314243
Volume :
2
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
npj Biodiversity
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....87e6840afcdf1daa9700583e704defa4
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-023-00015-5