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  • Perspective
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Redefining ecosystem multifunctionality

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 427–436 (2018)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 13 August 2018

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Abstract

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in ecosystem multifunctionality, a concept that has developed in the largely separate fields of biodiversity–ecosystem function and land management research. Here we discuss the merit of the multifunctionality concept, the advances it has delivered, the challenges it faces and solutions to these challenges. This involves the redefinition of multifunctionality as a property that exists at two levels: ecosystem function multifunctionality and ecosystem service multifunctionality. The framework presented provides a road map for the development of multifunctionality measures that are robust, quantifiable and relevant to both fundamental ecological science and ecosystem management.

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Fig. 1: An example of the measurement of landscape-scale ES-multifunctionality.

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Change history

  • 13 August 2018

    In the version of this Perspective originally published, in the figure in Box 3 the middle panel of the top row was incorrectly labelled ‘50% threshold-plus’; it should have read ‘50% threshold’. This has now been corrected.

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Acknowledgements

C. Penone, M. Felipe Lucia and M. Perring provided useful comments on earlier versions of the paper. P.M. acknowledges support from the German Research Foundation (DFG; MA 7144/1-1). F.T.M. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC grant agreement 647038 (BIODESERT)). We thank the FunDivEUROPE consortium (EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), grant agreement 265171) for support and for the data used in the examples.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, 60325, Frankfurt, Germany

    Peter Manning, Fons van der Plas & Markus Fischer

  2. Department of Systematic Botany and Functional Biodiversity, University of Leipzig, Johannisallee 21-23, 04103, Leipzig, Germany

    Fons van der Plas

  3. Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, 3013, Bern, Switzerland

    Santiago Soliveres, Eric Allan & Markus Fischer

  4. Departamento de Biología, Geología, Física y Química Inorgánica, Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles, 28933, Spain

    Fernando T. Maestre

  5. Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Georgina Mace

  6. Biology, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Mark J. Whittingham

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Contributions

P.M. conceived the study and wrote the initial draft, which was developed and revised by all other authors. P.M. and F.v.d.P. designed and performed analyses.

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Correspondence to Peter Manning.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1 and 2.

Supplementary Note

R based tutorial demonstrating how ecosystem function and ecosystem service multifunctionality can be quantified, as shown in examples 1 and 2, and the decision-making process behind this

Supplementary Data

Data used in Examples 1 and 2. Originally used in ref. 51. See ref. 51 for methods

Supplementary Code 1

R scripts for the quantification of EF-multifunctionality and ES-multifunctionality, used to compute example 1

Supplementary Code 2

R scripts for the quantification of EF-multifunctionality and ES-multifunctionality, used to compute example 2

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Manning, P., van der Plas, F., Soliveres, S. et al. Redefining ecosystem multifunctionality. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 427–436 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0461-7

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