Researchers find dissimilar forests are vital for deliveryof ecosystem services

摘要

Ateam of ecologists from Royal Holloway, University of London has taken part in a large collaborative EU project to find out what the effects of forest tree species diversity are on ecosystem services. These services, which include timber production,carbon storage, and forest resistance to pests and diseases, are crucial to human well-being.One of the key novel findings of the project published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, is the consistently negative impact a similarity in tree species composition across the landscape (biotic homogeniza-tion) has on the ability of forests to deliver multiple ecosystem services.