Large-scale biodiversity is vital to maintain ecosystem health

Terra Daily via SPX: Over the years ecologists have shown how biological diversity benefits the health of small, natural communities. New analysis by ecologists at UC Santa Cruz demonstrates that even higher levels of biological diversity are necessary to maintain ecosystem health in larger landscapes over long periods of time.

Think of it as patches on a quilt, says Erika Zavaleta, UCSC associate professor of environmental studies. Each patch may be a diverse habitat of plants, animals, and insects but it is equally important that the landscape "quilt" is made up of a diversity of patches that are different from each other.

"A mix of meadows, young forest, old forest and shrub lands, for example, might provide more benefits than a landscape of continuous young forest, even if that young forest itself has high biodiversity," Zavaleta said.

Zavaleta and two ecologists who recently received Ph.D.s from UCSC illustrate the importance of landscape diversity in their article "Several scales of bioversity affect ecosystem multifunctionality" published this week in PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

..."We used the simulation models to create imaginary landscapes with many kinds of habitats," she said. The team was able to test combinations of "patches" in order to determine the overall potential health of the "quilt." The authors write: "In addition to conserving important species, maintaining ecosystem multifunctionality will require diverse landscape mosaics of diverse communities."...

A 1915 American quilt shot by Sean Pathasema, public domain