The results of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments are realistic

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Environmental Science
• Biodiversity Research

Background:

• Extensive research links biodiversity loss to reduced ecosystem functioning.
• Current evidence often stems from simulated biodiversity loss in experiments, raising questions about real-world applicability due to non-random community assembly.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the ecological realism of biodiversity experiments with natural grassland plant communities.
• To assess the robustness of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships derived from experiments.

Main Methods:

• Compared taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity and trait composition of experimental communities (Jena Experiment, BioDIV) with real-world grassland data.
• Analyzed a subset of experimental data comprising only ecologically realistic communities.
• Re-evaluated biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships using both full and realistic experimental datasets.

Main Results:

• Experimental communities captured most of the variation found in real-world communities, while also including novel community types.
• Experimental communities exhibited greater compositional variance than real-world counterparts.
• Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning were largely consistent between full and ecologically realistic experimental datasets (10 out of 12 relationships).

Conclusions:

• Biodiversity experiments provide a largely robust framework for understanding biodiversity-ecosystem functioning.
• Experimental results remain largely insensitive to the exclusion of unrealistic community compositions.
• Conclusions drawn from biodiversity experiments are generally reliable for ecological insights.