enhanced biodiversity!!!!

In this era of species loss and habitat degradation, understanding the link between biodiversity and functioning of species assemblages is a critically important area of research. Two decades of research has shown that communities with more species or functional types results in higher levels of ecosystem functioning, such as nutrient processing rates, carbon sequestration and productivity, among others. This research has typically used controlled experiments that standardize environmental influences and manipulate species diversity. However, a number of people have hypothesized that biodiversity may be even more important for the maintenance of ecosystem functioning during times of environmental stress or change rather than under stable, controlled conditions. It is during these times of environmental change that preserving ecological function is most important, as changes in function can have cascading effects on other trophic levels, compounding environmental stress. Therefore, explicitly testing how biodiversity affects function under environmental stress can help to inform management decisions.