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      Species richness declines and biotic homogenisation have slowed down for NW-European pollinators and plants

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      1 , 2 , * , 1 , 3 , 4 , 2 , 2 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 9 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 13 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 1 , 2 , 18
      Ecology Letters
      Blackwell Publishing Ltd
      Accumulation curves, biodiversity loss, community ecology, plant–flower visitor communities, pollination, similarity, spatial homogenisation, species richness estimations, temporal and spatial patterns

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          Abstract

          Concern about biodiversity loss has led to increased public investment in conservation. Whereas there is a widespread perception that such initiatives have been unsuccessful, there are few quantitative tests of this perception. Here, we evaluate whether rates of biodiversity change have altered in recent decades in three European countries (Great Britain, Netherlands and Belgium) for plants and flower visiting insects. We compared four 20-year periods, comparing periods of rapid land-use intensification and natural habitat loss (1930–1990) with a period of increased conservation investment (post-1990). We found that extensive species richness loss and biotic homogenisation occurred before 1990, whereas these negative trends became substantially less accentuated during recent decades, being partially reversed for certain taxa (e.g. bees in Great Britain and Netherlands). These results highlight the potential to maintain or even restore current species assemblages (which despite past extinctions are still of great conservation value), at least in regions where large-scale land-use intensification and natural habitat loss has ceased.

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          Quantifying biodiversity: procedures and pitfalls in the measurement and comparison of species richness

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            High plant diversity is needed to maintain ecosystem services.

            Biodiversity is rapidly declining worldwide, and there is consensus that this can decrease ecosystem functioning and services. It remains unclear, though, whether few or many of the species in an ecosystem are needed to sustain the provisioning of ecosystem services. It has been hypothesized that most species would promote ecosystem services if many times, places, functions and environmental changes were considered; however, no previous study has considered all of these factors together. Here we show that 84% of the 147 grassland plant species studied in 17 biodiversity experiments promoted ecosystem functioning at least once. Different species promoted ecosystem functioning during different years, at different places, for different functions and under different environmental change scenarios. Furthermore, the species needed to provide one function during multiple years were not the same as those needed to provide multiple functions within one year. Our results indicate that even more species will be needed to maintain ecosystem functioning and services than previously suggested by studies that have either (1) considered only the number of species needed to promote one function under one set of environmental conditions, or (2) separately considered the importance of biodiversity for providing ecosystem functioning across multiple years, places, functions or environmental change scenarios. Therefore, although species may appear functionally redundant when one function is considered under one set of environmental conditions, many species are needed to maintain multiple functions at multiple times and places in a changing world.
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              A new statistical approach for assessing similarity of species composition with incidence and abundance data

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                Ecol Lett
                Ecol. Lett
                ele
                Ecology Letters
                Blackwell Publishing Ltd
                1461-023X
                1461-0248
                July 2013
                21 May 2013
                : 16
                : 7
                : 870-878
                Affiliations
                [1 ]School of Biology, University of Leeds LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK
                [2 ]Naturalis Biodiversity Center P.O. Box 9517, 2300RA, Leiden, The Netherlands
                [3 ]Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University 165 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
                [4 ]Center for Theoretical Study, Charles University and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Jilska 1, 110 00, Praha 1, Czech Republic
                [5 ]Working Group Lepidoptera Faunistics, Zoological Museum, Section Entomology Plantage Middenlaan 64, 1018 DH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
                [6 ]Butterfly Conservation Manor Yard, East Lulworth, Dorset, BH20 5QP, UK
                [7 ]Botanical Society of the British Isles, c/o Botany Department, British Museum (Nat. Hist.) London, UK
                [8 ]Centre for Ecosystem Studies, Wageningen University and Research Alterra, PO Box 47, NL-6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands
                [9 ]Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) Kliniekstraat 25, 1070, Brussels, Belgium
                [10 ]Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Leuven Charles Deberiotstraat 32, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium
                [11 ]Laboratoire de Zoologie, Université de Mons Place du Parc 23, B-7000 Mons, Belgium
                [12 ]FLORON Postbus 1413, 6501 BK, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
                [13 ]School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading Reading, RG6 6AR, UK
                [14 ]European Invertebrate Survey–Netherlands/Naturalis Biodiversity Center Postbus 9517, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands
                [15 ]Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Radboud University Nijmegen P.O. Box 9010, 6500 GL, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
                [16 ]De Vlinderstichting/Dutch Butterfly Conservation P.O. Box 506, 6700AM, Wageningen, The Netherlands
                [17 ]Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University P.O. Box 8031, 6700 EH, Wageningen, The Netherlands
                [18 ]University of Amsterdam, Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics P.O. Box 94248, 1090 GE, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
                Author notes
                *Correspondence: E-mail: l.g.carvalheiro@ 123456leeds.ac.uk
                Article
                10.1111/ele.12121
                3738924
                23692632
                2940e77a-ec9b-4ca0-8146-ea216c7ca689
                © 2013 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and CNRS

                Re-use of this article is permitted in accordance with the Creative Commons Deed, Attribution 2.5, which does not permit commercial exploitation.

                History
                : 14 February 2013
                : 26 March 2013
                : 07 April 2013
                Categories
                Letters

                Ecology
                accumulation curves,biodiversity loss,community ecology,plant–flower visitor communities,pollination,similarity,spatial homogenisation,species richness estimations,temporal and spatial patterns

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