At this week’s Macaulay Institute seminar, Professor Phil Grime from the Unit of Comparative Plant Ecology at Sheffield University, will challenge the assertion that plant species diversity has the major influence on ecosystem functioning.

In the seminar ‘impacts of species richness and genetic diversity on plant communities’ at 2pm this Wednesday, 16 March, Professor Grime will provide experimental evidence which indicates that “It is the biology of dominant plant species that ‘runs the show’.”

Commenting on the seminar, Professor Grime said: “Recent articles in Nature and Science suggesting that farmers can increase productivity and profits by increasing the species diversity of their grasslands are misguided. At the seminar I will be supporting this assertion with new results produced through a recent collaboration between ecologists and economists and published in Biological Conservation.

“For the first time anywhere in the world, species-rich grasslands have been created with controlled levels of genetic diversity in all component species and the consequences of genetic impoverishment have been monitored for seven years. The results confirm that genetic diversity sustains species diversity but does not affect productivity.”