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A single apex target for biodiversity would be bad news for both nature and people

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 4, pages 768–769 (2020)Cite this article

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Conserving biodiversity for its own sake and conserving it to safeguard ecosystem services are distinct goals that cannot both be achieved through a single target analogous to climate’s 1.5 °C, argues Andy Purvis.

A selfish reason for conserving nature is to safeguard the huge range of benefits it provides to people5 (Table 1). Most of these benefits are delivered locally by ecosystem processes underpinned by local biodiversity, especially species with high local biomass or abundance6. Reducing the functional diversity present in local ecosystems causes reduction in functionality — especially multifunctionality — and in resilience7,8: ecosystems ‘work’ less well and less predictably. Managing ecosystems to maximize a single ecosystem service such as food production typically reduces local functional diversity9 and the delivery of other ecosystem services such as climate regulation and soil formation10. Maintaining resilient multifunctional landscapes therefore requires a target based around the average state of local biodiversity11: the state of global biodiversity is largely irrelevant.

Table 1 A thought experiment contrasting two scenarios of biodiversity decline
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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, UK

    Andy Purvis

  2. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, UK

    Andy Purvis

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  1. Andy Purvis
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Correspondence to Andy Purvis.

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Purvis, A. A single apex target for biodiversity would be bad news for both nature and people. Nat Ecol Evol 4, 768–769 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1181-y

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