SynthesisNature2017
Biodiversity effects in the wild are common and as strong as key drivers of productivity.
Synthesis in Nature, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 138 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
138 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Biodiversity promotes ecosystem functioning despite environmental change.Ecology letters · 2022Pooled it
- A meta-analysis on decomposition quantifies afterlife effects of plant diversity as a global change driver.Nature communications · 2020Pooled it
- Meta-analysis shows positive effects of plant diversity on microbial biomass and respiration.Nature communications · 2019Pooled it
- Impact of short-term patient education intervention on the teaching skills of physical therapy students: a randomized controlled trial.BMC medical education · 2024Trial
- The Mean Temperature of the Coldest Season is the Main Factor Influencing the Relationship Between Biodiversity and Biomass in the Desert Shrubland of Western Inner Mongolia.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Using resurvey data to predict changes in ecosystem functioning across protected and unprotected coastal dunes.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Ecological multifunctionality of watersheds increases with tree species richness.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Plateau pika control degrades grasslands while grazing exclusion provides no habitat improvement.iScience · 2026Article
- Article
- Urbanization and Spatial Aggregation Impair Multifunctionality in Urban Vacant Lots.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Deciphering the keystone position of abundant species within surface-dwelling microbial aggregates in paddy soils.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Environmental quality affects the formation of generalist and specialist taxa in microbial communities.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Unravelling tree diversity patterns and responses to environmental gradients in a tropical forest landscape of the Western Ghats.Plant diversity · 2026Article
- Period of the day drives distinctions in the taxonomic and functional structures of reef fish assemblages.Journal of fish biology · 2026Article
- Dominant plants drive soil organic carbon storage in three gorges reservoir's water-level fluctuation zone.Carbon balance and management · 2025Article
- Climate change will greatly alter multifaceted biodiversity patterns in goatfish species.npj biodiversity · 2025Article
- How Wastewater Addition Reshapes Peatland Vegetation via Linked Abiotic and Biotic Changes.Biology · 2025Article
- Multi-Niche Microbiota of a Desert-Adapted Lizard: 16S rRNA Profiling ofAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
78 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
More than 500 controlled experiments have collectively suggested that biodiversity loss reduces ecosystem productivity and stability. Yet the importance of biodiversity in sustaining the world's ecosystems remains controversial, largely because of the lack of validation in nature, where strong abiotic forcing and complex interactions are assumed to swamp biodiversity effects. Here we test this assumption by analysing 133 estimates reported in 67 field studies that statistically separated the effects of biodiversity on biomass production from those of abiotic forcing. Contrary to the prevailing opinion of the previous two decades that biodiversity would have rare or weak effects in nature, we show that biomass production increases with species richness in a wide range of wild taxa and ecosystems. In fact, after controlling for environmental covariates, increases in biomass with biodiversity are stronger in nature than has previously been documented in experiments and comparable to or stronger than the effects of other well-known drivers of productivity, including climate and nutrient availability. These results are consistent with the collective experimental evidence that species richness increases community biomass production, and suggest that the role of biodiversity in maintaining productive ecosystems should figure prominently in global change science and policy.
Indexed as
Identifiers
28869964What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.