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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 13, 2026

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

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Published on: March 21, 2025

Reintroducing Environmental Change Drivers in Biodiversity-Ecosystem Functioning Research.

Frederik De Laender¹, Jason R Rohr², Roman Ashauer³

¹Research Unit in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium.

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

|October 16, 2016

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Explicitly including environmental change drivers in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (B-EF) research is crucial for predicting ecosystem responses. This approach enhances experimental control and mechanistic understanding of biodiversity-function relationships.

Keywords:

biodiversity environmental change food webs modeling richness traits

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Area of Science:

Ecology
Environmental Science
Biodiversity Research

Background:

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning (B-EF) research has historically overlooked the impact of environmental change.
Predicting ecosystem functions under changing biodiversity requires integrating environmental drivers.

Purpose of the Study:

To demonstrate the necessity of incorporating environmental change drivers into B-EF research.
To enhance experimental control and mechanistic insights into biodiversity-function relationships.
To differentiate the effects of random biodiversity changes from those driven by environmental shifts.

Main Methods:

Reviewing and illustrating the integration of environmental change drivers into B-EF research frameworks.
Proposing experimental designs and analytical approaches to study these integrated effects.
Analyzing how community composition and structure are influenced by environmental change.

Main Results:

Explicitly including environmental change drivers improves predictions of ecosystem functioning.
This integration offers better experimental control over community assembly.
Mechanistic insights into how biodiversity aspects relate to ecosystem functions are gained.

Conclusions:

Reintroducing environmental change drivers is essential for advancing B-EF research.
Future research should focus on disentangling the roles of random biodiversity changes versus environmental change impacts.
This integrated approach is key to understanding and managing ecosystems in a changing world.