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Abstract:
Species diversity promotes the delivery of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality). However, the
relative functional importance of rare and common species
in driving the biodiversity–multifunctionality relationship
remains unknown. We studied the relationship between
the diversity of rare and common species (according to
their local abundances and across nine different trophic
groups), and multifunctionality indices derived from
14 ecosystem functions on 150 grasslands across a landuse
intensity (LUI) gradient. The diversity of above- and
below-ground rare species had opposite effects, with rare
above-ground species being associated with high levels
of multifunctionality, probably because their effects on
different functions did not trade off against each other.
Conversely, common species were only related to average,
not high, levels of multifunctionality, and their functional
effects declined with LUI. Apart from the communitylevel
effects of diversity, we found significant positive
associations between the abundance of individual species
and multifunctionality in 6% of the species tested. Speciesspecific
functional effects were best predicted by their
response to LUI: species that declined in abundance with
land use intensification were those associated with higher
levels ofmultifunctionality. Our results highlight the importance
of rare species for ecosystem multifunctionality and help guiding future conservation priorities.
