Research report 2008 - Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Functional biodiversity research at the global scale
Authors
Wirth, Christian; Kattge, Jens
Departments
Organismische Biogeochemie (Dr. Christian Wirth)
MPI für Biogeochemie, Jena
Summary
How are ecosystem functions influenced by the loss of species diversity? How does the presence or absence of particular species affect biogeochemical cycles? The group ‘Organismic Biogeochemistry’ addresses these questions by compiling and analyzing global databases of functional plant traits and ecosystem properties. Three examples are presented to show that species identity effects may influence the carbon cycles at large scales and may thus be relevant in the context of climate change.