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Ecology

Roots of stability

Nature volume 437, pages 959–961 (2005)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 02 November 2005

The ‘insurance hypothesis’ holds that ecosystem diversity is a good thing because diversity confers overall stability in the face of stressful conditions. Experiments on grassland support that view.

Most ecologists agree that diversity is a desirable attribute for an ecosystem. But not all of them agree on why that is. It would be satisfying to be able to claim that diversity makes an ecosystem more stable, implying that a diverse system is better able to resist, or recover from, disturbance. But testing the point experimentally is no simple task.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry, King's College London, Franklin–Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London, SE1 9NH, UK

    Peter D. Moore

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  1. Peter D. Moore
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Moore, P. Roots of stability. Nature 437, 959–961 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/437959a

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