Approximately 25 years ago, ecologists became increasingly interested in the question of
whether ongoing biodiversity loss matters for the functioning of ecosystems. As such, a new …

Biodiversity enhances many of nature's benefits to people, including the regulation of
climate and the production of wood in forests, livestock forage in grasslands and fish in …

One of ecology's grand challenges is developing general rules to explain and predict highly
complex systems. Understanding and predicting ecological processes from species' traits …

Biodiversity contributes to the ecological and climatic stability of the Amazon Basin,, but is
increasingly threatened by deforestation and fire,. Here we quantify these impacts over the …

In recent years, scientists have realized that evolution can occur on timescales much shorter
than the" long lapse of ages" emphasized by Darwin—in fact, evolutionary change is …

BACKGROUND Microbial communities—microbiomes—are intricately linked to human
health and critical ecosystem services. New technologies allow the rapid characterization of …

The most unique feature of Earth is the existence of life, and the most extraordinary feature
of life is its diversity. Approximately 9 million types of plants, animals, protists and fungi …

The goal of conservation and restoration activities is to maintain biological diversity and the
ecosystem services that this diversity provides. These activities traditionally focus on the …

The hypotheses that have been derived to explain the distribution, abundance, dynamics,
and diversity of species are typically tested using data matrices containing the names and …

Biodiversity promotes ecosystem function as a consequence of functional differences among
organisms that enable resource partitioning and facilitation. As the need for biodiversity …