Pathways to link biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: from monitoring to complex ecological interactions studies

Abstract Environmental changes have been rapidly increasing in the last decades, causing unprecedented shifts in biodiversity. The impacts of biodiversity changes on ecosystem processes depend on the traits of affected species and their functional redundancy at the community level. The generated data on biodiversity-functioning in marine environments are still fragmentary and predictions on how species, communities and ecosystems will respond to the ongoing global changes are still uncertain. This selection of manuscripts presents the efforts of researchers around the world towards a better understanding on the mechanisms driving biodiversity and functioning patterns in marine ecosystems. The issue is composed of studies about first records of diversity and single species patterns in overlooked marine communities, effects of pollution in shaping species composition, foundation species and the impact of their loss on local communities, and the relevance of ecological interactions and species’ traits in structuring marine food webs. We conclude that more field and experimental studies combined to modelling are needed for understanding mechanisms that currently determine the structure and functioning of ecosystems and for improving predictions under global change scenarios