To deepen our understanding of biodiversity - ecosystem functioning relationships under environmental stress, we invite contributions focusing on various scales and approaches. This includes plot-level experiments revealing mechanistic processes, regional and global datasets uncovering broad patterns, and conceptual and methodological advances. We particularly welcome studies addressing:
• Interactive effects of multiple, co-occurring stressors on biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships
• The mechanisms by which plant diversity influences resistance, recovery, and longer term stability of ecosystem functioning under stress, including elucidating thresholds and nonlinear responses
• Scale dependence in space and time of biodiversity–stability relationships
• Syntheses and comparisons revealing generalities or context dependencies
By integrating insights across scales and stressor types, this session will evaluate the robustness of biodiversity’s contribution to ecosystem resilience, giving a synthesis of current understanding and identifying key knowledge gaps to guide future research. The discussions in the session will also be relevant for biodiversity management and for improving predictions of biodiversity loss impacts under ongoing global changes.
Understanding how ecological communities remain stable under environmental change, or fail to do so, is key to predicting the sustainable provision of ecosystem services and the resilience of nature-positive futures. One theory suggests that response diversity, the variation in how species respond to environmental fluctuations, can buffer communities against the effects of environmental change, reduce fluctuations, and enhance resilience. Nevertheless, the effects of response diversity are relatively poorly understood, may vary across disturbance regimes, and may weaken when species interact strongly with each other. Furthermore, how to measure response diversity from species traits, and how to scale such measurements from local community scales to broader spatial and temporal scales, remains unclear. Using a combination of mathematical model simulations, meta-analyses of field experiments, and laboratory studies, we have advanced understanding of how species’ responses combine to stabilize ecosystems. In particular, we found that community stability is driven largely by the distribution of species’ fundamental responses, with relatively weak effects of interactions among species, irrespective of the type of environmental disturbance. Moreover, novel metrics of response diversity and response balance show considerable potential as trait-based predictors of ecosystem stability. This is partly because they integrate the effects of both population stability and population asynchrony. Results also suggest that more traditional diversity metrics, such as dissimilarity, may be less effective predictors of ecosystem stability. Among other outstanding questions is the challenge of scaling up the measurement of trait-based response diversity and balance to larger spatial scales. At such scales, it remains unclear how to gather the required trait data or whether assumptions that could reduce data requirements can be justified. Ultimately, improving our ability to quantify and scale response diversity will be essential for predicting and managing ecosystem resilience in a rapidly changing world. This work lays the foundation for developing practical tools that link biodiversity traits to ecosystem stability across scales.
How to cite: Petchey, O., Francesco, P., Hämmig, T., Kunze, C., Ghosh, S., Pennekamp, F., and Hillebrand, H.: Response balance - a neglected mechanism stabilising ecosystem, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-7, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-7, 2026.
One of the unresolved questions in ecology is how the stabilizing effect of biodiversity develops through time and how it relates to ecosystem functioning. Recent studies have demonstrated that biodiversity's stabilizing effect on community production strengthens over time (Wagg et al. 2022). However, the underlying mechanisms, specifically, whether it aligns with that driving the strengthened niche complementarity and how they are shaped by climate change, remain poorly understood. This knowledge gap largely reflects limited understanding of how interspecific interactions contribute to the biodiversity–stability relationship.
By tracking a 20-year grassland biodiversity experiment and applying a split-plot design to remove legacy effects of biodiversity history, we disentangled the relative contributions of interspecific interactions and interaction-independent processes to biomass stability (Meng et al. 2025). Results support the idea that interspecific interactions become progressively less competition-dominated as communities develop (Reich et al. 2012). Accordingly, the destabilizing influence of these interactions on species-level variability declines over time, yet they contribute only marginally to the temporal strengthening of biodiversity’s effect on reducing community-level variability. Interspecific interactions remain dynamic, shifting with environmental conditions and through time—and can, in particular, enhance community stability during drier periods. Notably, while biodiversity’s stabilizing effect initially increased in concert with improvements in ecosystem functioning, this coupling weakened as interaction-based processes.
This study examines how the effects of biodiversity unfold over time, highlighting the role of interspecific interactions in linking biodiversity’s productivity-enhancing and stabilizing effects. Our findings reveal the dynamic nature of these effects and show that adopting a more comprehensive, time-explicit perspective on biodiversity is essential for predicting and managing the long-term transformations ecosystems face.
Meng, B., Luo, M., Loreau, M., Hong, P., Craven, D., Eisenhauer, N. et al. (2025). Stabilizing effects of biodiversity arise from species-specific dynamics rather than interspecific interactions in grasslands. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 9, 1837–1847
Reich, P.B., Tilman, D., Isbell, F., Mueller, K., Hobbie, S.E., Flynn, D.F.B. et al. (2012). Impacts of Biodiversity Loss Escalate Through Time as Redundancy Fades. Science, 336, 589-592.
Wagg, C., Roscher, C., Weigelt, A., Vogel, A., Ebeling, A., de Luca, E. et al. (2022). Biodiversity–stability relationships strengthen over time in a long-term grassland experiment. Nature Communications, 13, 7752.
How to cite: Meng, B., Huang, Y., Roscher, C., Sasaki, T., Wang, S., and Eisenhauer, N.: Decoupling of biodiversity effects on productivity and stability over time, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-201, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-201, 2026.
Understanding the drivers of vegetation carbon pool (VCP) distribution is critical for climate change mitigation. While abiotic factors are well-studied, the biotic mechanisms, central to the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationship, and their interaction with the environment remain less explored, especially in savanna ecosystems. This study investigates these BEF relationships and mechanisms along an elevational gradient (400-1700 m) in the dry-hot valleys of Southwest China, a savanna region with high carbon storage potential. Based on data from eighty 10 m×10 m plots, we assessed how environmental factors (climate and soil), plant diversity (species richness and Shannon index), and stand structure diversity (variation in tree diameter and height) shape VCP distribution. We found no significant elevational trend in total VCP, while its components exhibited divergent distributional patterns: tree VCP decreased while shrub VCP increased with elevation. Crucially, biotic factors outweighed abiotic factors in driving VCP patterns. We found significantly positive BEF relationships: both species diversity and structural diversity were positively correlated with VCPs of woody plants and trees. Notably, structural diversity was a stronger predictor than species diversity and mediated the latter's relationship with carbon storage, highlighting a key mechanism—optimized spatial resource use—through which biodiversity enhances carbon storage. In contrast, these positive diversity effects were not observed for shrub VCP. The total VCP was predominantly driven by tree structural diversity rather than shrub factors, affirming the dominant functional role of trees in this ecosystem. Furthermore, elevation indirectly shaped VCP patterns by regulating both soil properties and the key biotic drivers, demonstrating the environmental dependency of these BEF relationships. These findings provide strong evidence for BEF relationships in a savanna ecosystem, establishing plant diversity, particularly structural diversity, as a critical regulator of carbon sequestration. This underscores the importance of integrating biodiversity conservation, with a focus on maintaining complex stand structure, into carbon-oriented management strategies for dryland ecosystems.
How to cite: Ma, S., Li, W., Liu, W., Chen, Y., and Zhang, Z.: Tree structural diversity mediates vegetation carbon storage in dry-hot valley savannas along an elevational gradient, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-947, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-947, 2026.
European beech (Fagus sylvatica) is widespread and dominant in many central European forests. Increasing drought stress due to climate change has caused severe damage in beech stands across the continent (Geßler et al., 2007; Leuschner, 2020). Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are key ecological signals during drought, mediating within-plant responses and interactions with other plants and trophic levels (Baldwin, 2010). Understanding volatile responses in European beech is therefore important for future forest management under climate change. However, the volatile profiles of European beech under drought stress remain poorly studied.
In this study, we used 72 four-year-old European beech trees from seven provenances and 12 seed families (same maternal trees), assigning them to drought and control groups in a common garden located in Zurich, Switzerland. Drought-treated trees received no water for a total of 14 days, while the control group remained well watered throughout the experiment. VOCs were sampled at three time points for both groups: before drought, after 7 days of drought treatment, and after 14 days of re-watering. A “push–pull” system was used to actively collect headspace volatiles around each whole tree into Tenax tubes, and samples were analyzed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Features were detected and aligned among samples using MZmine (Heuckeroth et al., 2024), and peak heights were analyzed with linear models and variance partitioning to identify VOC signals related to genetic background and drought stress.
We found that several monoterpenes displayed genetically specific emission patterns under well-watered conditions, reflecting underlying genetic differentiation in VOC physiology. During drought, a large proportion of the variation in VOCs was explained by drought treatment, while the variation attributed to seed family decreased substantially. In particular, monoterpenes and green leaf volatiles indicated strong activation of stress-response pathways. Notably, a subset of drought-induced VOCs remained elevated even after re-watering, suggesting a legacy effect of drought stress. Our results show that drought-related VOC signals can serve as valuable biomarkers for assessing drought stress in European beech, thereby improving our ability to monitor tree health under climate change.
How to cite: Tang, T., Guerra, T., L. Coq—Etchegaray, D., Schimd, B., R. Castro, S., Reichert, L., C. Schuman, M., and van Moorsel, S.: How does European beech smell under drought stress? Volatile responses across genetically diverse backgrounds, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-320, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-320, 2026.
We urgently need to understand how land-use intensification and anthropogenic climate change drive ecosystem decay and biodiversity loss. In temperate grasslands, intensive land-use typically reduces plant diversity but enhances productivity by favoring resource-acquisitive, fast-growing species. Previous studies suggested that more diverse communities harboring more slow-growing species should be more resistant to climatic stress. Yet, how land-use intensity mediates plant community responses—such as diversity, biomass, and stability—to increasingly frequent and severe climate extremes remains poorly understood. In this study, we integrate annual vegetation surveys, standardized land-use indices, and daily temperature and precipitation data from 150 grasslands in Germany (The Biodiversity Exploratories) with high-resolution reconstructions of daily historical climate variability since 1950. Land-use intensity was quantified through standardized indices of fertilization, mowing, and grazing levels, allowing us to link management regimes to multi-decadal patterns of climatic stress. We identify and quantify the frequency, duration, and intensity of multiple extreme events (e.g. heatwaves, droughts, cold spells) over the past 75 years and assess how the diversity of aboveground plants, their traits, and their biomass production respond to these climatic stressors under varying land-use intensities since 2008. Our reconstructions show a dramatic rise in severe drought occurrence, from an average of 0.20 months of severe drought per year over the 1990–2006 period to 3.19 months of severe drought months over 2008–2024 - a 1’495% increase in mean annual drought exposure. Over the latter period, aboveground biomass declined significantly (–8.3 ± 0.8 g m-2 yr⁻¹), whereas species richness increased (+0.41 ± 0.16 species yr⁻¹). Biomass losses were strongest in intensively managed grasslands (–9.8 ± 0.8 g m-2 yr⁻¹), suggesting that land-use intensification amplifies long-term biomass declines under increasingly dry conditions. Although intensively managed grasslands show lower plant species richness, they also showed the fastest gains in richness through time. Land-use categories had no detectable effect on the rates of plant biomass resistance or recovery from droughts. Our results highlight how increasingly frequent and severe droughts, in combination with intensive land-use, threaten the biomass production and stability of grassland ecosystems across Central Europe.
How to cite: Benedetti, F., Huerta, A., Pinho, B. X., Wöllauer, S., Boesing, A. L., Le Provost, G., Magdon, P., Manning, P., Prati, D., Blüthgen, N., and Fischer, M.: Interactive Effects of Land-Use Intensification and Climate Extremes on Grassland Biodiversity and Stability, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-171, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-171, 2026.
The occurrence of drought events has historically been a natural disturbance agent for ecosystems in many regions across the globe, and has contributed to shaping ecological processes and evolutionary adaptations. However, under anthropogenic climate change and unsustainable management of water resources, droughts are increasing in frequency, intensity and duration, causing levels of stress and amplifying feedbacks that can drive ecosystems such as forests beyond their resilience thresholds. In this context it has been suggested that more biodiversity, in its multiple dimensions, might increase forest resilience, acting as a buffer against the impacts of droughts and their associated risks for forest health, such as bark beetle outbreaks. To uncover to what extent biodiversity’s buffering role has been investigated by the scientific community, we perform a systematic literature review covering more than 300 articles over the past ten years. Through this review, we investigate the drivers of drought vulnerability and resilience for forests worldwide. Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, the review revealed an incidental rather than comprehensive body of academic literature on the drought risk mitigating effects of biodiversity. Still, interesting findings emerge from the review. These range from the direct and indirect mitigating effects of mixed forest cover on insect outbreak, to the positive influence of functional and taxonomic diversity on post-drought tree growth recovery and resilience. Different mechanisms might lie behind such effects: The first finding possibly exemplifies a case of associational resistance, in which confounding olfactory signals in mixed forests hinder bark beetles in identifying host trees. In addition, mixed forest structure can contribute to temperature cooling and preservation of water resources, reducing tree stress and susceptibility during droughts. Similarly, the latter finding is likely due to resource partitioning in functionally diverse stands and thus decreased competition between trees. Importantly, the results of the review also emphasize that the role played by biodiversity as driver of resilience is modulated by drought severity. In addition to discussing key patterns that emerged from the review, other outputs of this research include the visualization of drivers’ connections through conceptual models and an openly accessible database storing all drivers gathered during the review.
How to cite: Sabino Siemons, A.-S., Maurer, T., Ramos Sánchez, C., Cremonese, E., Lehmann, I., and Wens, M.: Protecting forests: The buffering role of biodiversity under droughts, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-226, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-226, 2026.
Habitat fragmentation has contributed significantly to biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation in many regions over the past decades. Forest fragmentation is increasing in more than half of the world’s forests, and over 70% of the global forest area is situated within one kilometer of the nearest forest edge. Although biodiversity can be a stabilising force for ecosystem functioning, it is unclear whether and how above- and belowground biodiversity can buffer forest ecosystem functioning under fragmentation-induced pressures in heterogeneous mountain landscapes.
In this study, we investigated 260 forest plots distributed across 26 fragmented patches of temperate coniferous forests and mixed conifer–broadleaf forests in northwestern Yunnan, China. These forest patches span an elevational range from ca. 2,180 to 3,840 m and represent diverse fragmentation pressures, including road edges, farmland boundaries, fire-affected areas, plantations, and natural meadow transitions. Within each patch, 10 × 10 m plots were established at 10 m intervals along transects extending from the forest edge to 100 m inside the forest. This design allowed us to study both the strength of edge effects and the impacts of different types of fragmentation.
Plant community composition, soil samples, and UAV hyperspectral imagery were collected for all plots. Taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic plant diversity was determined, as well as soil microbial diversity using eDNA metabarcoding. Ecosystem functioning was assessed using above-ground biomass, as well as soil carbon and nitrogen pools. We use mixed-effects models and structural equation modelling to disentangle direct fragmentation effects from biodiversity-mediated modulation of ecosystem functioning. Our analyses will specifically focus on (i) how different fragmentation pressures affect multi-dimensional biodiversity; (ii) how fragmentation types and edge-to-interior intensity gradients influence ecosystem functioning; and (iii) whether above- and below- ground biodiversity modulate the impacts of fragmentation stress on forest functioning and sensitivity.
By integrating multi-scale fragmentation pressures with above- and belowground biodiversity and functioning assessments, this study provides novel insights into biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships under environmental stress.
Keywords: forest fragmentation; biodiversity-ecosystem functioning; edge effects; ecosystem multifunctionality; functional and phylogenetic diversity; soil microbial
How to cite: Li, W., De Boeck, H. J., Zheng, C., Nijs, I., Chen, J., and Zhang, Z.: Biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships under multi-scale fragmentation pressures in natural forests along an elevational gradient, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-335, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-335, 2026.
Understanding the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning under increasing environmental stress is essential for predicting and mitigating global change impacts on terrestrial ecosystems. Here, we combined a Europe-wide soil survey with controlled microcosm experiments to assess how global change drivers (applied either alone or in combination) alter soil biodiversity and its capacity to sustain key ecosystem functions, such as greenhouse gas emissions, litter decomposition, and plant productivity.
At the continental scale, we relied on ca. 400 soil samples collected across 27 European countries representing the main land cover types in Europe (i.e., grasslands, woodlands, and croplands), as well as the main climatic regions (temperate and mediterranean). Each site was characterised in terms of soil properties, climatic variables (temperature, precipitation), and DNA-based microbial diversity (bacterial and fungal metabarcoding). For each site, we integrated multiple environmental stressors (e.g., climatic anomalies, soil pollutants) and explored how they relate to soil biodiversity and other soil health components (e.g., microbial biomass) using general additive models (GAMs) and feature-importance analysis (Random Forest). To mechanistically complement field patterns, we performed microcosm experiments manipulating microbial diversity and exposing soils to co-occurring stressors, including pesticides and antibiotics. We found that reductions in microbial diversity strongly impaired multiple soil functions, including litter decomposition, carbon-substrate utilisation, acid phosphatase activity, and plant growth. We also found that exposure to multiple pesticide residues altered the biodiversity–functioning relationship: it reduced fungal richness and weakened its contribution to decomposition and plant productivity. Finally, we observed the lowest plant productivity (biomass and number of plants) in microcosms with co-occurring stressors (pesticides and antibiotics).
Together, our findings demonstrate that global change negatively impacts soil biodiversity at large scales and that multiple co-occurring stressors (e.g., pesticides and antibiotics) can decouple biodiversity from ecosystem functioning. These results underscore the urgency of protecting soil biodiversity to safeguard ecosystem resilience under intensifying global change.
How to cite: Romero, F., Labouyrie, M., Orgiazzi, A., Altshuler, I., Bahram, M., and van der Heijden, M.: Biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality under environmental stress: from a continental-scale survey to a microcosm approach, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-670, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-670, 2026.
While substantial evidence from biodiversity experiments over the past three decades shows that random species loss reduces community productivity, how productivity is affected by the more realistic scenario of non-random species loss in natural ecosystems remains unclear. Here, we simulated 9 non-random species loss scenarios—directed by different species attributes (that can be categorized into five different aspects including leaf functional traits, evolutionary history characteristic, biogeographical distribution, ecological niche breadth and the integrated prediction of extinction probability) associated with species extinction risk—and evaluated their impacts on community productivity across 54 grassland and forest biodiversity experiments. We found that diversity loss consistently reduced productivity across all non-random species loss scenarios and both in grassland and forest ecosystem, and these negative impacts on productivity strengthened over time. The probability of relative productivity loss surpassing corresponding relative diversity loss (i.e., non-redundancy of biodiversity) was higher in grassland ecosystem than forest ecosystem. While the average effects of non-random species loss were comparable to that of random species loss, the difference between the two sets of scenarios varied substantially across different experiments and ecosystems, with potential to be both over- and under-estimated. Most notably, the productivity decline was more severe when species with lower leaf nitrogen content, more distinct evolutionary history, or more server reduction in suitable habitat were lost first, compared to the random species loss scenario, in most of the experiments. In addition, we found that interspecific interactions were more important than species identities in driving the observed negative impacts of non-random species loss on productivity, especially in forest ecosystem. Our results advance the understanding of the functional consequences of real-world biodiversity loss, demonstrate that realistic diversity loss can severely impair ecosystem functioning in the context of ongoing global changes, and highlight the urgent need for conservation strategies to minish the decreasing trend of global biodiversity.
How to cite: Lin, Z. and Chen, Y.: Directed plant species loss reduced community productivity globally, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-62, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-62, 2026.
Ongoing climate change and human impacts, such as forest management, are altering the distribution patterns of species and vitality of ecosystems around the world. The changing presence or absence of species is typically described using metrics that determine α-diversity, but it can also be assessed by estimating dark diversity (the absence of expected species). Therefore, we use defoliation as an indicator of forest vitality to study its impact on the presence or absence of plant species and how this interacts with management procedures, protection status, site characteristics, and soil characteristics. Our analysis is based on data of the second National Soil Condition Survey in Germany, which recorded species distribution, defoliation, forest stand and soil parameters on an 8 × 8 km national grid from 2006 to 2008. A third inventory was conducted from 2022 to 2024 and will allow for temporal, next to spatial, analyses. The large sample size enables us to develop separate models for the vitality and the presence or absence of species within each forest vegetation association. Preliminary results show that oak-dominated forests are more vital than montane beech forests, even when mixed with fir and spruce. However, defoliation is increasing over time for oak-dominated forests, while decreasing for montane forests. Overall, the vitality of trees and how it changes over time is more impacted by climatic conditions than by forest management procedures. Additionally, the results suggest that species that prefer open land increase in abundance in forest ecosystems with increasing defoliation (decreasing vitality) on protected forest sites. Since defoliation is higher in protected forest areas on average, it implies that the forest protection status is less effective for stands with decreasing vitality. We expect the upcoming analysis to confirm this community shift by showing a greater absence of forest indicator species as defoliation increases. Further, changes in community composition will be assessed using mean Ellenberg indicator values. By directly comparing dark diversity (species absence) and α-diversity, we aim to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the requirements for forest conservation practices and management procedures that are essential to maintaining vital forest ecosystems.
How to cite: Dietrich, V., Gärtner, J., and Wellbrock, N.: Comparing dark diversity and α-diversity: Modulation by forest ecosystem vitality, management intensity, conservation strategies, and environmental conditions, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-95, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-95, 2026.
Theories of species coexistence and biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships (BEF) provide fundamental frameworks for understanding the maintenance of biodiversity and its functional consequences, respectively. While coexistence and BEF are intrinsically linked through shared underlying drivers and processes, they are usually studied separately, hindering an integrative understanding of the causes and consequences of biodiversity. In this study, we examine the relationships between coexistence potential and BEF in heterogeneous metacommunities. By developing a spatially implicit metacommunity model, we investigate how spatial processes (e.g., spatial heterogeneity, dispersal) and interspecific traits (e.g., interspecific niche differentiation, asymmetry) influence species coexistence potential and BEF. Coexistence potential is defined as the average invasion growth rate of species at low density and is decomposed into non-spatial fitness, spatial storage effects, and fitness-density covariance. BEF is quantified as the difference between mixture yield and mean monoculture yield and partitioned into average complementarity, average selection, and spatial selection effects. By combining analytical investigations and simulations, we explore how spatial and interspecific drivers regulate these components, thereby mediating the coexistence-BEF relationships.
Under certain assumptions, analytical solutions show that increased spatial heterogeneity and reduced dispersal promote both species coexistence and BEF in metacommunities by increasing the spatial storage effect, fitness-density covariance, spatial selection effect and average complementarity effect, yielding a positive coexistence–BEF correlation. The relative contribution of each component to the overall variation of coexistence potential and BEF varies with dispersal rate, which also governs how component-level covariation shapes their correlation. Simulations along gradients of niche differentiation and asymmetry show that niche differentiation promotes coexistence and BEF by enhancing non-spatial fitness and average complementarity, while interspecific asymmetry contributes primarily through increasing average selection effects. Our simulations confirm a generally positive coexistence-BEF correlation, including scenarios with non-random dispersal, etc. That said, negative correlations between coexistence potential and BEF may also occur, such as in metacommunities with competition-colonization trade-offs. Overall, our analyses demonstrate that in metacommunities, coexistence and BEF are often positively correlated, mediated by shared spatial and interspecific drivers. Our findings bridge the gap between coexistence and BEF across spatial scales, offering new insights into how spatial processes shape biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
How to cite: Wu, D. and Wang, S.: Linking species coexistence and ecosystem functioning in model metacommunities, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-236, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-236, 2026.
Understanding what allows natural and managed systems to maintain function in the face of disturbances is a central challenge in ecology and beyond. Ecosystems, agricultural systems, climate processes, and even financial markets all depend on some degree of temporal stability—the tendency of a system to fluctuate relatively little through time. Temporal stability has underlying components: the capacity to resist disruption when a disturbance occurs, and the capacity to recover afterward. These same components underpin resilience, defined here as the extent to which a system has returned toward unperturbed levels following a perturbation. Although these concepts are widely invoked, their quantitative relationships and predictive power have remained unclear.
In this presentation, I introduce and test a new framework that clarifies how resistance and recovery combine to influence both temporal stability and resilience. A key insight emerging from this work is that temporal stability can often be estimated from resistance alone, even when information on recovery rates is sparse or unavailable. In contrast, and consistent with previously theoretical work, resilience depends most strongly on recovery.
To empirically test these new theoretical predictions, we analyzed more than 25 years of plant productivity data from the world’s longest-running biodiversity experiment, which allowed us to test relationships at both the ecosystem and species levels. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, resistance alone provided moderately accurate predictions of long-term stability, and additionally incorporating recovery improved predictions only slightly. Resilience, however, was predicted by the combined contributions of resistance and recovery at the ecosystem level. We also found that ecosystems exhibiting greater temporal stability before a drought tended to be more resistant during the drought, suggesting that routine monitoring of variability may provide an early warning and forecasting of system responses during future perturbations.
Our findings advance the field from simply acknowledging that stability encompasses multiple dimensions to showing how four key stability metrics fit within a coherent hierarchy. In this structure, two integrated types of stability, temporal stability and resilience, each arise from two underlying components, resistance and recovery, whose relative contributions are predictable.
How to cite: Isbell, F.: Predicting stability: how resistance and recovery contribute to the temporal stability and resilience of ecosystems and species, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-361, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-361, 2026.
Precipitation regimes are becoming more persistent under climate change, resulting in abnormal and prolonged dry and wet conditions that can affect ecosystems and lead to yield losses. Understanding how agricultural grasslands respond to changes in precipitation regimes, and whether diversity both above- and belowground can modulate these impacts, is therefore of great importance. In this study, we investigated whether grassland plant diversity (number of species and dominance patterns) and abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can help stabilize ecosystem functioning under changing weather persistence.
The experiment was conducted at the Drie Eiken Campus, University of Antwerp, Belgium. Seven outdoor plots were established using a complete factorial design with two AMF treatments, three precipitation regimes (including a common extreme drought), and seven grassland communities. In total, 350 mesocosms were established. Precipitation patterns were simulated using automated screens and drip irrigation, and the AMF addition was carried out with commercial Rhizoglomus irregulare inoculum pellets. In order to assess the responses of grassland performance and productivity and the role of AMF under changing weather persistence, plant response variables such as aboveground biomass, green cover, and ecophysiological variables (photosynthesis, chlorophyll fluorescence, stomatal conductance, and chlorophyll content) were measured. Furthermore, we have investigated changes in the colonization, richness, diversity, and composition of AMF communities in response to changing weather persistence.
Results presented at the conference will cover the 2025 growing season, focusing on stress build-up, resistance and recovery, and effects thereon of the various single and combined treatments. Particular emphasis will be on the importance of plant community composition (differing species, species richness, and dominance patterns) and belowground diversity (AMF). We will discuss the underlying mechanisms, as well as the potential implications for the grassland management and adaptation strategies.
Keywords: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), agricultural grasslands, biodiversity, climate change impacts, plant community composition, plant-microbe interaction, plant physiology.
How to cite: Begum, N., De Boeck, H., Verbruggen, E., and Nijs, I.: How do above- and belowground diversity modulate the impact of changing weather persistence on grassland growth and ecophysiology?, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-358, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-358, 2026.
Sustainable land uses in the catchment areas improves the ecological integrity of rivers, and ensures steady provision of ecosystem services to the basin communities. Despite tropical river basins being important hotspots of biodiversity and social-economic revolution, they have also become hotspots of unprecedented land uses over the past decades due to escalation of anthropogenic impacts. This has implications on the river basin community structure by altering macroinvertebrates diversity, composition and functional feeding groups. One of the such endangered river basins are Kibisi and Kuywa in Western Kenya, which have undergone extensive land use changes. This research will assess land use changes, water quality and their effects on the macroinvertebrates community in Mt. Elgon region. The specific objectives of the study will be to assess the effects of spatial land use changes on macroinvertebrates community structure, determine the significant relationship between the water quality and macroinvertebrate community structure. To achieve these objectives, two rivers in Mt. Elgon Region (Rivers Kibisi and Kuywa) traversing different land use change gradient will be sampled for macroinvertebrates and water quality for 6 months. Sentinel (2) satellite images for different years will assess spatial land use changes within the river basin watershed. Ground truth visualisation with the aid of longitudinal and cross sectional transect walk and horizontal photographs will aid in confirming land use categories identified. Ex-situ and in situ techniques will be used to obtain water quality data. Sampled macroinvertebrates will be identified to genus level for taxonomic and functional analysis. SPSS software will statistically analyse macroinvertebrates and water quality data by computing standard error mean (± SE), ANOVA, Kruskall Wallis H test, constrained ordination techniques, and Pearson’s correlation analysis. Functional Feeding Groups, EPT structure and biodiversity metrics (evenness, diversity, dominance, abundance, and richness indices) will be computed to assess macroinvertebrate community structure. Similarities of genera among land use categories will be quantified using Sorenson’s coefficient index for comparison purposes. This will yield sufficient data required in informing restoration and rehabilitation actions for degraded river basin ecosystems in Kenya, regionally and in the world.
How to cite: Tela, S.: Land use changes, water quality and their effects on macroinvertebrates community structure among rivers in Mt. Elgon region. , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-259, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-259, 2026.
Biomass production in semi-natural grasslands varies depending on anthropogenic disturbances caused by land-use practices and natural disturbances such as droughts during the growing season. Species insurance effects, in particular compensatory effects of plant species diversity, are well researched with regard to the stability of biomass production across several years at the plot scale. However, it is not sufficiently understood if there are similar buffering effects of plant species diversity on the variability of biomass increments on a much shorter time scale within a season and at a larger spatial extent. We therefore aim to investigate how mowing and grazing intensity affect the buffering potential of plant species diversity on the spatiotemporal variability of annual biomass increments and how this differs between a drought year (2020) and a non-drought year (2021) in entire grassland fields of two German regions. We used upscaled time series of biomass production from every two weeks during the growing season to calculate the variability of annual biomass increments, as well as spatially upscaled annual predictions of species diversity and land-use intensity, all based on satellite imagery. In our study, we go beyond the plot scale and also analyse the larger field scale. In this way, we contribute to the understanding of how biomass increments vary spatially and temporally over the course of the season and what role species diversity and its compensatory effects through space play in this context. We hypothesise that grassland fields that are on average more species-rich and spatially variable in their species diversity are better able to buffer disturbances caused by land-use practices or droughts and lead to a more stable increase in biomass. Furthermore, we expect that this buffering potential is more pronounced at the field scale compared to the smaller plot scale, as results can be more robust when including the heterogeneity of whole grassland fields. Findings of this study can provide insights into the extent to which plant diversity ensures stable annual biomass production and how this buffering potential is influenced by the intensity of land-use practices in semi-natural grasslands across scales.
How to cite: Meyer, S. N., Eckhardt, M., Muro, J., Schwarz, L.-M., Männer, F. A., Dubovyk, O., and Linstädter, A.: Buffering potential of plant diversity on the spatiotemporal variability of annual biomass increments at the plot and field scale in semi-natural grasslands, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-756, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-756, 2026.
Forest biomass stores vast amounts of carbon, playing a vital role in biodiversity maintenance, carbon sequestration, and climate change mitigation. However, the synergistic effects of forest attributes (e.g., plant diversity, community-level functional traits, and structural complexity) on biomass carbon stock remain unclear, especially across large ecological scales. By conducting a systematic forest survey encompassing 62,842 trees in 1217 plots (20 m*20 m) in southwest China, we quantified the relationships between forest attributes and carbon stock, and investigated the modulating effects of topography, climate and anthropogenic disturbance. We found that forest carbon stock increased with mean annual precipitation, soil nitrogen and elevation as well as decreased with disturbance intensity, but had no significant relationship with neither mean annual temperature or slope. All attributes had significant relationship with forest carbon stock. Specifically, tree species diversity (hill numbers: 0D, 1D, 2D) had a positive relationship with forest carbon stock, indicating that both the richness of all species and that of common species were linked to forest carbon accumulation. Community-level maximum tree height exhibited a positive relationship with forest carbon stock, while community-level leaf nitrogen content exhibited a negative relationship with it Within stand structure factors, stand density, canopy closure, and structural complexity (DBH variance and height variance) exhibited positive relationships with forest carbon stock. Furthermore, these relationships were modulated by elevation, mean annual precipitation, and disturbance intensity. Interestingly, the best predictor of forest carbon stock shifted from structural complexity in undisturbed forests to maximum tree height in disturbed ecosystems, reflecting the decrease in structural complementarity effects while the intensification of dominant species effect under anthropogenic disturbance. Our study reveals the critical context-dependency of forest attribute-carbon stock relationships. This finding offers a framework for carbon- and climate-targeted forest restoration across tropical and subtropical regions under similar environmental conditions, highlighting the need for strategies that synergistically manage both diversity and large-sized trees.
How to cite: Li, Z.: Context-dependent forest carbon storage: a shift in dominance from structural complexity to large-sized trees across disturbance gradients, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-265, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-265, 2026.
Ecosystem resistance and resilience to increasingly more common extreme climate events is impacted by community properties, including biodiversity. However, the relative importance of species richness, evenness, and dominance is debated and is further modulated by global change factors such as nutrient addition. By synthesizing up to four decades of data from three Long-Term Ecological Research sites, we show that resistance and resilience of aboveground biomass to extreme climate events are determined by multiple properties of plant community structure, including species richness, evenness, and dominant species. The influence of these community properties depends on the type of extreme event (dry vs. wet), while nutrient availability alters resistance and resilience indirectly via community properties. Our work builds on the foundational findings of Tilman and Downing (1994), which demonstrated that greater species richness stabilizes productivity during drought. While highly influential, that work has been debated and refined over the past three decades, with growing recognition that other components of plant community structure — particularly the role of dominant species and evenness — determine ecosystem functioning and stability. Our findings support the richness–stability relationship in the case of drought, but they also reveal that dominance plays a stronger role in buffering wet-year responses and that evenness can enhance resilience under certain conditions. In detail, greater species evenness promoted resilience in control, but not nutrient addition plots during dry years. In contrast, greater dominance increased resistance to extreme wet years, with nutrient addition decreasing resistance overall. However, resilience to extreme wet years was negatively affected by the interaction of dominance and nutrient addition, such that greater dominance in nutrient addition plots lowered resilience. Furthermore, nutrient enrichment alters these dynamics indirectly by reshaping these community properties. Species richness and dominance are also directly reduced by extreme climate events, which may erode resistance and resilience to future events. These findings advocate for managing plant communities for community properties beyond species richness to promote resistance and resilience to a future of increasing extreme climate events and global change.
How to cite: Ajowele, J. A., Darst, A. L., Baker, N. R., Brenneman, R. R., Broderick, C., Cappelli, S. L., Liang, M., Linabury, M., Nieland, M. A., Parker-Smith, M., Pehim Limbu, S., Terry, R. S., Young, M. L., Zaret, M., and Zaricor, M.: Multiple community properties drive ecosystem resistance and resilience to extreme climate events across mesic grasslands, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-769, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-769, 2026.
