Context-dependence of biodiversity effects and real-world perspective

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In the last two decades there has been enormous progress on clarifying the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In this proposal, we address four challenges for further progress in the field. There is a wide variety of responses of different ecosystem functions to changes in plant diversity, which also depend on the considered ecosystem. For fundamental ecology it is thus important to understand a) why the effects of biodiversity differ between different ecosystems and different ecosystem functions, and b) if and why there are trade-offs and synergies in biodiversity effects on different functions. We will analyse drivers of the variation in biodiversity effects on different ecosystem variables and analyse synergies and trade-offs between different ecosystem functions. These analyses will make use of the wealth of data collected in the Jena Experiment, and, in cross-site comparisons, include data of other biodiversity experiments. For fundamental and applied reasons it is important c) to put the results found in biodiversity experiments in a real-world context, and d) to improve our understanding of the role of diversity for ecosystem services and, in consequence, for ecosystem management. We will address this by systematically comparing results and mechanisms between biodiversity experiments and real-world systems, and by assessing biodiversity effects on ecosystem services. Results from the Jena Experiment, further experiments, and the Biodiversity Exploratories - where biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is studied along a gradient of land-use intensity in the real world - will be compared. Moreover, different ecosystem-service scenarios will be developed, valuated economically and the underlying role of biodiversity will be studied. This subproject will collaborate closely with the other subprojects of the research unit and it will link the Jena Experiment to other major international research efforts on the role of biodiversity for ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services.