Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges
Both sampling effects and complementarity contribute to diversity-stability relationships
This synthesis paper resolved the early debate about whether diversity-stability relationships were real or merely artifacts of sampling effects. The authors showed that both sampling effects AND complementarity contribute to diversity-stability relationships - neither alone explains the full pattern.
The chapter draws on this paper to explain the sampling effect: diverse communities are more likely to contain key species simply by chance. But the paper also showed that diverse plots outperform even monocultures of the best species, proving that complementarity and portfolio effects operate beyond pure sampling.
This citation is foundational for understanding that diversity provides multiple overlapping mechanisms of insurance - not just one - which is why the organizational framework emphasizes building multiple types of portfolio diversity simultaneously.
Key Findings from Loreau et al. (2001)
- Both sampling effects and complementarity contribute to diversity-stability relationships
- Diverse plots outperform monocultures of the best species (ruling out pure sampling effects)
- Multiple mechanisms operate simultaneously to create biodiversity insurance
- The insurance value of diversity is not an artifact of accidentally including good species
- Diversity increases probability of having the right species AND increases total function