Abstract
Functional diversity is increasingly pointed as a useful approach to reach Biological Conservation goals. Here, we provide an overview of the functional diversity approach status in the Biological Conservation field. We sought for peer-reviewed papers published over a period of twenty years (from 1994 to 2014). First we used the general topic "functional diversity" and then refined our search using the key-word "conservation". We have identified the conservation strategies addressed, the organism studied, and the continent of study site in each paper. Thirteen classes of conservation strategies were identified. Plants were the most commonly studied organism group and most study-sites were located in Europe. The functional diversity approach was introduced in the Biological Conservation field in the early 2000's and its inclusion in conservation strategies is broadly advised. However, the number of papers that operationalise such inclusion by developing models and systems is still low. Functional diversity responds differently and eventually better than other measures to changes in land use and management, which suggests that this approach can potentially better predict the impacts. More studies are needed to corroborate this hypothesis. We pointed out knowledge gaps regarding identification of the responses for functional diversity about urban impacts and in research on the level of management intensity of land needed to maintain functional diversity. We recommend the use of functional diversity measures to find ecological indicators. Future studies should focus on the development of functional diversity measures of other taxa beyond plants as well as test hypothesis in tropical ecosystems.
Highlights
Biological Conservation aims to maintain ecosystem functioning and services (Meffe and Carroll, 1963)
Biodiversity indices most commonly used are those based on the number of species and their abundance, they assume that each species contributes to ecosystem functioning (Magurran, 2004)
We identify the presence of functional diversity in academic papers since the beginning of the studied period (i.e. 1994) and the number of published papers is increasing
Summary
Biological Conservation aims to maintain ecosystem functioning and services (Meffe and Carroll, 1963). As biological diversity is assumed to reflect ecosystem functioning reasonably, managers usually employ measures of species diversity in order to assess ecosystem functioning (Magurran, 2004; Ricklefs, 2003). Biodiversity indices most commonly used are those based on the number of species and their abundance, they assume that each species contributes to ecosystem functioning (Magurran, 2004). Ecosystem functioning is maintained by the interactions among species and with the environment such as photosynthesis, herbivory, pollination, seed dispersal, and nutrient cycling (Blüthgen, 2011; Hooper et al, 2005). The contribution of each species to the ecosystem functioning relies on its characteristics and interactions and on the species number (Tilman et al, 1997)
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