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Keystone Species

Keystone Species

Measures of species biodiversity, such as richness (i.e., the number of species present) and evenness (i.e., their relative abundance), describe an ecological community’s structure. Many factors affect community structure, including abiotic factors (e.g., sunlight and nutrients), disturbances (e.g., fire or flood), species interactions (e.g., predation or competition), and chance events (e.g., foreign species invasion). Certain species—such as keystone species—also play a...

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Biodiversity describes the variety of living things at multiple organizational levels: genetic, species and ecosystem diversity. Species diversity includes all branches of the evolutionary tree from single-celled prokaryotic organisms, bacteria, and archaea, to the eukaryotic kingdoms: plants; animals; fungi; and protists. To date, there have been about 1.75 million species identified, and new species are discovered every week.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 22, 2026

JenaTron - An Experimental Approach to Study the Effects of Plant History and Soil History on Grassland Ecosystem Functioning

JenaTron - An Experimental Approach to Study the Effects of Plant History and Soil History on Grassland Ecosystem Functioning

Published on: March 21, 2025

Locally rare species influence grassland ecosystem multifunctionality.

Santiago Soliveres¹, Peter Manning², Daniel Prati³

¹Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, Bern 3013, Switzerland santiago.soliveres@ips.unibe.ch.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences

|April 27, 2016

Summary

Rare above-ground species enhance ecosystem multifunctionality, while common species provide average function levels. Conservation efforts should prioritize rare species for ecosystem health.

Keywords:

biodiversity common species ecosystem function identity hypothesis land use multitrophic

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Area of Science:

Ecology
Conservation Biology
Ecosystem Function

Background:

Species diversity is crucial for ecosystem multifunctionality.
The distinct roles of rare versus common species in this relationship are not well understood.
Understanding these roles is key for effective biodiversity conservation.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how the diversity of rare and common species influences ecosystem multifunctionality.
To determine the impact of local abundance and trophic groups on this relationship.
To assess the influence of land-use intensity (LUI) on species' functional importance.

Main Methods:

Studied 150 grasslands along a land-use intensity gradient.
Assessed diversity of rare and common species across nine trophic groups.
Quantified multifunctionality using 14 ecosystem functions.

Main Results:

Rare above-ground species diversity positively correlated with high multifunctionality.
Common species diversity related to average multifunctionality, with effects decreasing under higher LUI.
Species abundance positively associated with multifunctionality, particularly for species declining with LUI.

Conclusions:

Rare species, especially above-ground ones, are vital for high ecosystem multifunctionality.
Conservation strategies should focus on protecting rare species to maintain ecosystem functions.
Species' responses to land-use intensity predict their functional contribution to multifunctionality.