Biodiversity safeguards ecosystem services and functions worldwide.

Across 423 studies, biodiversity generally enhances ecosystem functions and services, with oceanic “blue carbon” sequestration showing exceptional sensitivity to biodiversity loss.

• Why it matters: Biodiversity loss threatens ecosystem services, but the strength, shape, and context-dependence of biodiversity–service and biodiversity–function links are not well quantified.
• What they did: The authors synthesized 423 studies to estimate effect sizes, testing whether relationships are linear or insensitive and identifying which services/functions respond most.
• The result: The synthesis suggests regulating services often follow linear, additive patterns, while hazard regulation appears relatively insensitive and pest regulation is forecast to decline in countries with population growth and intensive development.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.