BIOB50H3 Lecture 17: BIOB50Winter2012 Lecture 17.docx
Document Summary
Ecosystem functions are the physical, chemical, and biological processes or attributes that contribute to the self-maintenance of an ecosystem. Examples of ecosystem function examples are carbon cycling, provision of habitat, nutrient cycling (e. g. n, p), productivity, stability, and decomposition. Benefits people obtain from ecosystems, including provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services, and supporting services. Examples include water filtration, pollution filtration, buffering from natural disasters, food production, wood production, pollination, erosion control, climate regulation, recreation, waste decomposition, provision of pharmaceuticals, etc David tilman and john dowling biodiversity and stability in grasslands . Impacts of biodiversity on population dynamics and ecosystem functioning have long been debated1 7, however, with many theoretical explorations2 6,8 11 but few field studies12 15. Here we describe a long-term study of grasslands16,17 which shows that primary productivity in more diverse plant communities is more resistant to, and recovers more fully from, a major drought.
