“Response diversity is particularly important for ecosystem renewal and reorganization following change.”

The idea of biodiversity having an insurance function has been around for a long time. We developed this idea further and linked it specifically to functions and ecosystem services and used examples from both terrestrial and aquatic environments. My interpretation is that in this paper, we rather successfully managed to condense the message and make the insurance point and its implications very clear.

We do introduce a new concept—response diversity—which we find very useful when analyzing the role of biodiversity for maintaining ecosystem services in the face of disturbances and surprises. This concept might prove to be very useful in a practical design sense in the management of ecosystems, conservation and restoration.

Humanity is altering the capacity of ecosystems to buffer disturbance, and we can no longer take for granted a sustained flow of ecosystem services essential to our well-being. Resilience, e.g., the capacity to buffer disturbances, is necessary to sustain desirable ecosystem states in variable environments. Biological diversity appears to enhance the resilience of desirable ecosystem states. This might be particularly true for response diversity, i.e., the diversity of responses to environmental change among species contributing to the same ecosystem function. Response diversity is particularly important for ecosystem renewal and reorganization following change. We should pay special attention to response diversity when planning ecosystem management and restoration, since it may contribute considerably to the resilience of desired ecosystem states against disturbance, mismanagement, and degradation.

I have been working with biodiversity research for the last 10 years. Recently I have intellectually benefited very much from being involved in workshops organized by the Resilience Alliance, a consortium of research groups around the world interested in sustainable management and the use of biodiversity and natural resources. Several of the co-authors of this article are active working in the Resilience Alliance.