"Nature conservation and agriculture often see the goals of biodiversity protection and food security as conflicting. But by promoting biodiversity across the whole of the country, this dichotomy can be overcome and many win-win situations can be created."
«Die Initiative ist völlig harmlos» (PDF, 8 MB) (in German)
Pflanzenfreund.ch, 9/2024
"Mixed crops are almost always more productive than monocultures, even if they are intensively farmed. This is because biodiversity opens up more opportunities for risk sharing and division of labour in nature."
«Ökosysteme erbringen heute hochstehende Funktionen» (PDF, 398 KB) (in German)
Weltwoche Nr. 35.24, 28.08.2024
Plant diversity enhances ecosystem multifunctionality via multitrophic diversity
An international research team, including Bernhard Schmid, has shown that, in both forest and grassland ecosystems, the association between multitrophic diversity and multifunctionality was stronger than the relationship between the diversity of individual trophic groups and multifunctionality.
The researchers show that plant diversity increases multifunctionality through elevated multitrophic diversity. The findings imply that, to promote ecosystem multifunctionality, conservation planning must consider the diversity of both plants and higher trophic levels.
As the study shows, ecosystems can sustain many important functions, but only when diversity is high. Thus, it is important to preserve and manage all ecosystems to the benefit of species and mankind.
Y. Li, A. Schuldt, A. Ebeling, N. Eisenhauer, Y. Huang, G. Albert, C. Albracht, A. Amyntas, M. Bonkowski, H. Bruelheide, M. Bröcher, D. Chesters, J. Chen, Y. N., Chen, J-T. Chen, M. Ciobanu, X. Deng, F. Fornoff, G. Gleixner, L. D. Guo, P-F. Guo, A. Heintz-Buschart, A-M. Klein, M. Lange, S. Li, Q, Li, Y. B. Li, A. Luo, S. T. Meyer, G. Oheimb, G. Rutten, T. Scholten, M. D. Solbach, M. Staab, M-Q. Wang, N. L. Zhang, C-D, Zhu, B. Schmid, K. P. Ma and X. J. Liu. 2024. Plant diversity enhances ecosystem multifunctionality via multitrophic diversity. Nature Ecology & Evolution.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02517-2
Image: BEF-China
