新的结果提示，保护与保持地球生物多元化或有助于缓冲人类活动所致的环境变化对生态系统的影响。具体来说，Yann Hautier和同事证明，植物品种多样化对草地生态系统的长期稳定起着一个关键性的中介作用。研究人员分析了12个长期实地试验数据并揭示，植物多元性可通过抵御范围广泛的人为(即由人造成的)变化来帮助稳定这些生态系统。科学家们对人为改变进行了几十年的研究，这些研究包括气候暖化、营养负荷、压制火灾到干旱等。但这些变化对生态系统的生产力和稳定性影响则一直是个谜。现在，Hautier和同事对美国明尼苏达东-中部沙质土壤所做的研究结果进行了结合;这些不同研究的完成过程历时4到28年不等。研究人员在每项试验中都考虑了环境因素(如水、二氧化碳和氮)，并且确认了只有那些影响生态系统功能稳定性的变化才会改变生物多元性。他们说，在草地生态系统中植物品种越多，其生产力在面临人为变化时往往会保持更大的稳定性。研究人员透露，什么驱使了生物多样性的变化并不重要。他们的结果表明，任何驱动影响生物多样性的环境变化因子都可能会对生态稳定性施加长期的影响。

    Anthropogenic environmental changes affect ecosystem stability via biodiversity

    Human-driven environmental changes may simultaneously affect the biodiversity, productivity, and stability of Earth’s ecosystems, but there is no consensus on the causal relationships linking these variables. Data from 12 multiyear experiments that manipulate important anthropogenic drivers, including plant diversity, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, fire, herbivory, and water, show that each driver influences ecosystem productivity. However, the stability of ecosystem productivity is only changed by those drivers that alter biodiversity, with a given decrease in plant species numbers leading to a quantitatively similar decrease in ecosystem stability regardless of which driver caused the biodiversity loss. These results suggest that changes in biodiversity caused by drivers of environmental change may be a major factor determining how global environmental changes affect ecosystem stability.