The functioning of European grassland ecosystems: potential benefits of biodiversity to agriculture

About half the farmland of Europe is grassland pasture or hay meadow, and m uch is impoverished in plant species due to the addition of fertilizers and pesticides, agricultural re-sowing, habitat fragmentation, land abandonmen t and changes in grazing and mowing regimes. Given this widespread reductio n, it is important to understand the effect that loss of biodiversity is ha ving upon our wider environment. Here the authors summarize the main result s from the BIODEPTH project, the first multinational, large-scale experimen t to examine directly the relationship between plant diversity and the proc esses that determine the functioning of ecosystems. The results suggest tha t preserving and restoring grassland diversity may be beneficial to maintai ning desirable levels of several ecosystem processes, and may therefore hav e applications in land management and agriculture.