This paper, published in *Nature*, reviews the impact of biodiversity loss on ecosystem functions and the goods and services they provide to humanity. The authors, from various institutions worldwide, highlight the significant progress made over the past two decades in understanding how biodiversity loss affects ecosystem functioning. Key findings include: 1. **Ecosystem Functioning (BEF)**: - Biodiversity loss reduces the efficiency of ecological communities in capturing resources, producing biomass, and cycling nutrients. - Diversity increases the stability of ecosystem functions over time. - The impact of biodiversity on ecosystem functions is non-linear, with initial losses having minimal effects but accelerating as biodiversity continues to decline. - Diverse communities are more productive due to key species and functional traits. - Loss of diversity across trophic levels can strongly influence ecosystem functions. - Functional traits of organisms significantly affect ecosystem functions. 2. **Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES)**: - Biodiversity directly influences or is strongly correlated with certain provisioning and regulating services. - Evidence for effects of biodiversity on ecosystem services is mixed for some services. - Insufficient data to evaluate the relationship between biodiversity and some ecosystem services. - Some ecosystem services may be negatively impacted by increased biodiversity under certain conditions. 3. **Emerging Trends**: - The impacts of biodiversity loss on ecological processes might rival other global drivers of environmental change. - Diversity effects grow stronger with time and at larger spatial scales. - Maintaining multiple ecosystem processes requires higher levels of biodiversity. - The ecological consequences of biodiversity loss can be predicted from evolutionary history. 4. **Outlook and Directions**: - Integrating BEF and BES research to better understand mechanistic links between ecosystem functions and services. - Expanding the scope of research to explore more realistic scenarios of biodiversity change. - Improving predictions through more complex and realistic experiments and models. - Valuing biodiversity by estimating its marginal value for ecosystem services. - Responding to policy initiatives to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services. The paper emphasizes the need for further research to reduce uncertainties and better serve policy and management initiatives, aiming to ensure sustainable ecosystems that support human well-being.This paper, published in *Nature*, reviews the impact of biodiversity loss on ecosystem functions and the goods and services they provide to humanity. The authors, from various institutions worldwide, highlight the significant progress made over the past two decades in understanding how biodiversity loss affects ecosystem functioning. Key findings include: 1. **Ecosystem Functioning (BEF)**: - Biodiversity loss reduces the efficiency of ecological communities in capturing resources, producing biomass, and cycling nutrients. - Diversity increases the stability of ecosystem functions over time. - The impact of biodiversity on ecosystem functions is non-linear, with initial losses having minimal effects but accelerating as biodiversity continues to decline. - Diverse communities are more productive due to key species and functional traits. - Loss of diversity across trophic levels can strongly influence ecosystem functions. - Functional traits of organisms significantly affect ecosystem functions. 2. **Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES)**: - Biodiversity directly influences or is strongly correlated with certain provisioning and regulating services. - Evidence for effects of biodiversity on ecosystem services is mixed for some services. - Insufficient data to evaluate the relationship between biodiversity and some ecosystem services. - Some ecosystem services may be negatively impacted by increased biodiversity under certain conditions. 3. **Emerging Trends**: - The impacts of biodiversity loss on ecological processes might rival other global drivers of environmental change. - Diversity effects grow stronger with time and at larger spatial scales. - Maintaining multiple ecosystem processes requires higher levels of biodiversity. - The ecological consequences of biodiversity loss can be predicted from evolutionary history. 4. **Outlook and Directions**: - Integrating BEF and BES research to better understand mechanistic links between ecosystem functions and services. - Expanding the scope of research to explore more realistic scenarios of biodiversity change. - Improving predictions through more complex and realistic experiments and models. - Valuing biodiversity by estimating its marginal value for ecosystem services. - Responding to policy initiatives to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services. The paper emphasizes the need for further research to reduce uncertainties and better serve policy and management initiatives, aiming to ensure sustainable ecosystems that support human well-being.