High ecosystem service delivery potential of small woodlands in agricultural landscapes

Global forest loss and fragmentation have strongly increased the frequency of forest patches smaller than a few hectares. Little is known about the biodiversity and ecosystem service supply potential of such small woodlands in comparison to larger forests. As it is widely recognized that high biodiversity levels increase ecosystem functionality and the delivery of multiple ecosystem services, small, isolated woodlands are expected to have a lower potential for ecosystem service delivery than large forests hosting more species.

We collected data on the diversity of six taxonomic groups covering invertebrates, plants and fungi, and on the supply potential of five ecosystem services and one disservice within 224 woodlands distributed across temperate Europe. We related their ability to simultaneously provide multiple ecosystem services (multiservice delivery potential) at different performance levels to biodiversity of all studied taxonomic groups (multidiversity), forest pat...