Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function

With the accelerating loss of biodiversity there is increasing concern about how this loss may be affecting ecosystem processes, or services, that are of benefit to human well-being. The limited studies that address the principal question directly, species numbers versus system function, are evaluated in this study. Moreover, the degree of redundancy within systems, the ubiquity of keystone species, the tightness of species interactions from mutualisms to feed webs, the resilience of systems to perturbation, and the interactions of landscape units are explored. The subject matter of this volume brings together in a substantive and integrative manner the disciplines of population biology and ecosystem science, both directed towards evaluating the consequences of human-driven disruptions of natural systems.