Katharine Bolt,Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

The NEA adopts the CBD definition of biodiversity which incorporates the attribute of diversity – a measure of variation between genes, species and ecosystems and the composition and relative abundance of living things. This section focuses on the potential additional values associated with diversity. We identify broadly three areas where diversity per se may be responsible for values beyond those manifest in the ecosystem services biodiversity supports. The role of diversity in underpinning service delivery There is evidence to suggest that increased rates of the ecosystem processes underlying ecosystem services are associated with increased numbers of species or genes. There are also a number of examples where simplification of ecosystems has potentially led to a net loss of services. Understanding ecological processes that underpin ecosystem services plays a key part in our understanding of the link between diversity and the value of ecosystem services. The infrastructure, insurance and resilience values of biodiversity The infrastructure, or primary value of biodiversity is related to the fact that some combinations of ecosystem structure and composition are necessary to ensure the ‘healthy’ functioning of the system. The insurance hypothesis states that biodiversity insures ecosystems against declines in their functioning because the more species the greater the guarantee that some will maintain functioning even if others fail