Introduction

Human domination of the biosphere has profoundly transformed terrestrial and aquatic landscapes across scales (Díaz et al. 2019). One of the fundamental consequences of pervasive human-induced environmental changes is the massive and accelerated loss of biological diversity–declines in the variety of microbes, plants, and animals in land and water that have evolved over the last 3.6 billion years on the planet. A comprehensive global assessment has revealed that over 75% of species have been lost in the most severely human-impacted ecosystems on the planet (Newbold et al. 2015), and current rates of species extinction are ~ 100 to 1,000 times outpacing the background rates observed in the fossil record (Pimm et al. 2014). Similarly, an updated planetary boundary analysis has demonstrated that biosphere integrity that encompasses genetic diversity is among the six boundaries that has transgressed its safe operating space for humanity (Steffen et al. 2015; Richardson et al. 2023). If current trends of human pressure and biodiversity loss continue, projections suggest that the Earth may face its sixth mass extinction in 350 to 500 years from now (Barnosky et al. 2011).

Declines in biodiversity have raised substantial concerns about consequences for ecosystem functions and services such as food supply, clean water, disease control, pollination, flood abatement, and climate regulation, all of which underpin human welfare (Cardinale et al. 2012; Bennett et al. 2015; Qiu and Cardinale 2020). Indeed, there has been an overwhelming consensus among global experts that loss of biodiversity is likely to exert negative and far-reaching impacts on human society (IPBES 2019; Isbell et al. 2023). In fact, the biodiversity crisis, together with climate change, have been recognized as among the most substantial components of a ‘polycrisis’ (Lawrence et al. 2024) that threatens nature and its contributions to people (Díaz et al. 2018; Pörtner et al. 2023). Ultimately, what underlies this polycrisis is an undermining of landscape sustainability–i.e., the capacity of landscapes to consistently provide long-term, landscape-specific ecosystem services essential for maintaining and improving human well-being (Wu 2013, 2021). Hence, urgent and integrated actions at landscape scales to halt biodiversity loss and achieve the global biodiversity goals set forth by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework are required to put the global ecosystems on a path to recovery by 2050 (Leadley et al. 2022).

While we are losing biodiversity locally and perhaps regionally at an exceptionally rapid pace, the good news is that, at the global scale, less than 3% of all species have gone completely extinct from the planet (Barnosky et al. 2011). This means there is still time and a window of opportunity for us to bend the curve and safeguard biodiversity, as well as to conserve the goods and services essential to ensuring the long-term ecosystem health and prosperity of people. On this positive note, actions are underway with promising outcomes, where a global evidence-based model shows that conservation investment has quantitatively reduced the rate of biodiversity loss across 109 countries worldwide (Waldron et al. 2017). Nevertheless, to better support and inform future management and conservation actions, it is critical to advance our knowledge of biodiversity–ecosystem services (BES) linkages in real landscapes.

Over the past few decades, remarkable theoretical and empirical advances have been made towards understanding the ecological and societal consequences of biodiversity change (Chapin et al. 2000; Loreau et al. 2001; Hooper et al. 2005; Tilman et al. 2014). However, most of the current knowledge about how biodiversity impacts ecosystem functions and services has been built from hundreds of experiments performed at relatively small spatial scales over rather short timeframes. While small-scale experiments have been instrumental for identifying biodiversity effects on ecosystem functions and confirming specific mechanisms, these scales of investigation often suffer from a lack of realism and poorly align with the scales at which human actions, landscape design and planning, conservation policy, and management decisions take place. Yet such understanding at landscape scales is fundamental, because multiple ecosystem services are simultaneously delivered, managed, and valued at the landscape scales, where (1) a variety of ecosystem services depend on the movement of organisms across landscapes; and therefore (2) landscape structure (e.g., landscape composition, landscape configuration, landscape connectivity, spatial context), in turn, influences organism movement and species interactions that ultimately mediate biodiversity effects and alter BES linkages (Mitchell et al. 2013; Duarte et al. 2018; Qiu 2019).

As such, scientific communities have increasingly urged for more research to scale up BES findings to the whole landscapes where society interacts with and relies on nature’s services (Qiu and Cardinale 2020; Gonzalez et al. 2020). More research is also called for to explore and better understand the consequences of biodiversity loss at the scales of large, real-world landscapes where a plethora of biotic and abiotic factors interact to determine the relative contributions and influences of biodiversity on ecosystem functions and services. These needs are also reflected in the development of the ‘landscape service’ concept (i.e., ecosystem services influenced by landscape patterns) that offers a foundation to understand the structure–function-value chain through which ecosystem service provision flows, as well as serves as a bridge that unifies scholars, practitioners, and stakeholders for collaborative development of multifunctional landscapes that contribute to human wellbeing (Termorshuizen and Opdam 2009; Bastian et al. 2014). Indeed, an increasing number of empirical studies and syntheses have begun to unravel how biodiversity affects ecosystem functions such as the production of biomass, in larger and more natural systems (Grace et al. 2007; Gamfeldt et al. 2013; Liang et al. 2016; Duffy et al. 2017; Felipe-Lucia et al. 2018). Nonetheless, at present, such knowledge is still scarce and rudimentary, limited to a few ecosystem functions without extending to the wide range of ecosystem services that society values and benefits from, and covers only a few specific ecosystems. Furthermore, among the existing literature, very few studies have taken a social-ecological approach to investigating the specific roles of biodiversity in underpinning the supply and demand of different ecosystem services.

Overview of articles in the special issue

In response to these research needs, we have developed this Topical Collection to call for heightened attention and new research to address BES linkages in real landscapes. We solicited and collated studies that aim to broaden this literature and advance our understanding on patterns and mechanisms of how biodiversity changes in real landscapes may alter ecosystem services that directly affect human wellbeing. Such understanding is timely and can be crucial for the ongoing management and policy initiatives such as the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) that assesses regional and global changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services (Larigauderie and Mooney 2010; IPBES 2019), and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that aim to halt biodiversity loss and achieve truly sustainable development (e.g., SDG-12, SDG-13, SDG-14, SDG-15) (Griggs et al. 2013).

Specifically, this Topical Collection comprises 13 papers, including perspective (Mitchell et al. 2024), modeling (Roilo et al. 2024), and empirical studies ranging from different terrestrial (e.g., urban, agroecosystem, semi-natural habitat, natural ecosystem, regional watershed) and aquatic systems (e.g., seagrass meadow). Our collection of papers also encompasses a diverse portfolio of provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services – such as crop production, pollination, disease regulation, carbon storage, and bird-associated cultural services – that are directly or indirectly underpinned and respond to changes in biodiversity.

Mitchell et al. (2024) is a Perspective paper that develops a new conceptual framework to understand the potential drivers across spatial scales that could affect BES linkages. The paper identifies a wide variety of different and distinct pathways, including ecological or supply-side pathways (e.g., complementarity, sampling or species identity effects, species interactions, abiotic conditions, cross-scale ecological interactions), and socio-ecological or demand-side pathways (e.g., ecosystem service demand, ecosystem service co-production, cross-scale ecosystem service flows), through which BES relationships could vary across spatial scales. The paper also puts forward four predictions about the spatial scales that the effects of biodiversity, ecosystem service management, ecosystem co-production, and abiotic linkages or effects will be most evident on BES relationships. Several key future directions are also highlighted to advance cross-scale BES research, such as (a) an enhanced understanding of the scales at which ecosystem services and biodiversity should matter and be measured; (b) the need to quantify actual ecosystem service benefits and supply–demand; (c) the need for multi-scalar quantification and mapping of biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services across scales; (d) building multi-scale BES models; and (e) an improved understanding of how BES linkages respond to changing temporal scales.

Roilo et al. (2024) focuses on agricultural intensification, which is a major driver of alterations in biodiversity and ecosystem services (Qiu et al. 2021; Guo et al. 2023). This paper uses a virtual species approach to investigate how different land-use intensity metrics and spatial aggregation methods (e.g., square, hexagonal, and voronoi grids) can lead to large variations in the estimation of land-use intensity effects across space and thus affect biodiversity modeling. Results from this paper have important implications for developing multi-scalar models to understand land-use intensification effects on biodiversity and their cascading influences on ecosystem services across large heterogeneous landscapes, which ultimately can help to design more targeted and effective conservation actions for ecosystem management. In another type of agroecosystem (i.e., grasslands), Kachler et al. (2023) analyzes linkages between forage production, plant diversity, and land-use intensity in protected and non-protected grasslands in Germany. The authors demonstrate that land-use intensity is a key driver in the relationship between forage production and plant diversity in grasslands. Importantly, this paper shows that the evidence for tradeoffs between forage production and plant diversity are present in non-protected grasslands but may be weaker in protected grasslands.

Pollination and pest control are perhaps among the suite of most frequently studied biodiversity-dependent ecosystem services. In this collection, Bartelli et al. (2023) tests to what extent tomato crop management and landscape structure are related to the community metrics of flower-visiting bees at two different spatial scales (i.e., 500-m and 2000-m buffer) in Southeastern Brazil. Results from this work show that mixed-crop management and a higher percentage of natural vegetation positively affect the occurrence of native bees, but that the relative importance of landscape structure decreases for certain bee community metrics as the buffer spatial scale increases to 2000-m. These findings reinforce that mixed-species systems and conservation of natural habitats are critical for maintaining the diversity of wild bees and pollination services they provide. Similarly, Kammerer et al. (2024) studies effects of local and landscape quality on wild-bee communities across the Finger Lake regions of New York, USA, but with the added aspect of seasonality. The authors reveal that the most relevant spatial scale and landscape factors vary by season, where early-season bee communities respond primarily to landscape-scale resources, but mid-to-late season bee communities are strongly influenced by local conditions. Results from this work highlight the importance of temporal dynamics in mediating BES linkages (Reich et al. 2012), and the necessity to develop season-specific recommendations to improve habitat quality for wild bees and sustain their pollination services throughout the crop growing season. Next, taking a lens of multiple ecosystem services and focusing on their tradeoffs and synergies in real landscapes, Hohlenwerger et al. (2024) investigates how and at which scale landscape features relate to the supply, demand, and flow of different ecosystem services, including pollination. This study provides novel evidence that the provision of pollination, pest control by ants, and pest control by birds and bats in the Brazilian coffee plantations are mediated by landscape attributes associated with the supply, demand, and flow of these services at multiple scales. Results from this work highlight the challenges in simultaneously enhancing pollination and pest control, suggesting that a combination of local and landscape strategies to protect and restore native vegetation at multiple scales whilst allowing for different crop and habitat configurations could benefit multiple services and avoid disservices. In another similar study, Hemberger and Gratton (2023) use models to predict the occurrence of wild bumble bees as a function of landscape-scale resource abundance and continuity as an index of pollinator “supply” and combine this with spatially-explicit data on pollinator-dependent crop production to identify areas of high pollination “demand” in Central Wisconsin, USA. This work reveals a clear spatial mismatch between pollinator supply and demand, largely due to the inadequate floral resource conditions and high levels of resource discontinuity. These results suggest that measures to increase crop diversity, reduce field size, and a focus on conserving and improving semi-natural habitats in the landscapes surrounding crop fields may support improved floral resource conditions, ultimately bolster bumble bee populations, and help stabilize supply of pollination services and economic stability of agricultural landscapes. Finally, Hinsch et al. (2024) uses an expert- and process-based model to spatially analyze pollination service potentials in the Hannover region of central Germany. The authors show that the use of ecosystem condition or management parameters, in addition to land use type, increases the spatial heterogeneity of the modelled map of habitat suitability for wild bees. Results from this work corroborate with earlier research arguing that land cover-based proxies provide a poor fit to quantify biodiversity and ecosystem services (Eigenbrod et al. 2010), and stress the importance of spatially-explicit approaches in implementing effective interventions (Qiu et al. 2017; Liao et al. 2020).

Birds are another species group that is frequently studied in the BES research. In urban landscapes of Brisbane in eastern Australia, Suarez-Castro et al. (2024) tests how landscape composition and configuration influence patterns of bird attractiveness (i.e., trait diversity associated with colorfulness, behavioral, and song categories), which underlies many essential bird-driven cultural ecosystem services. The authors demonstrate that small bodied, colorful, and melodious bird species are negatively affected by built infrastructure and habitat fragmentation. These results can inform how urban landscapes might be designed and structured to increase people’s connection with nature through ecosystem services associated with urban bird communities. In addition, in working landscapes of coastal California, USA, Olimpi et al. (2024) seeks to determine how farmland diversification affects bird diversity, fecal contamination, and foodborne pathogen incidences. Results from this work suggest that habitat conservation around farms could support bird conservation and their related ecosystem services, without increasing foodborne pathogens, especially on farms further away from grazing lands. Importantly, this work indicates that interventions that diversify farming systems could simultaneously conserve biodiversity and provide safe food for human consumption.

Linking empirical studies to ecological theories, Castillioni and Isbell (2023) conduct a comprehensive field experiment to empirically test the predictions from metacommunity theory by manipulating species assembly in five habitats (grassland, oak savanna, deciduous and conifer forest, bog) at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, Minnesota, USA. Results from this early stage of the experiment reveal positive spatial selection effects (i.e., positive effects of spatial β-diversity on landscape productivity), mostly due to average selection effects across all habitats. These results are consistent with theoretical predictions that additional effects of plant diversity on ecosystem functions, beyond those observed in local experiments within local habitats, may arise at landscape scales from the dispersal and spatial sorting of species across a heterogeneous landscape. Hence, from a theoretical and empirical standpoint, this work emphasizes the importance of metacommunity processes as drivers of BES linkages across real heterogenous landscapes, alluding to the significance of environmental heterogeneity that could ultimately determine the community structure and its relationships to ecosystems and their sustained functions and services.

Mining is a destructive human-induced landscape alteration that negatively impacts biodiversity and ecosystem services, especially in mineral-rich landscapes. Current environmental assessments and mitigation plans have focused mostly on mining impacts on biodiversity, yet consequences for ecosystem services, especially those related to and underlined by biodiversity and valued by remote indigenous communities, remain much less well understood. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, Boldy et al. (2023) assesses the impacts of bauxite mining on culturally significant plant species in northern Australia. Results from this study show that open woodlands contain the highest number of culturally significant plant species but are the least protected from mining operations under current management plans and regulatory requirements. This work highlights the need for a collaborative approach between industry, government, and Traditional Owners to capture and manage BES for local people throughout and beyond the mining lifecycle.

While the majority of the BES literature has focused on terrestrial ecosystems, this Topical Collection does include one aquatic study by Bijak et al. (2023). This work investigates the influences of historical and contemporary seagrass cover and composition on surface (0–10 cm) sediment organic carbon storage at the meadow-scale (~ 25 km2), in addition to the influence of environmental drivers, along a low-energy coastline in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Results from this work illustrate that historical seagrass cover, seagrass species diversity, and species identity (specifically the presence of Thalassia testudinum) are strong predictors of surface sediment carbon storage. These findings suggest that preserving seagrass diversity ensures long-term processes such as vegetation community succession, which, in turn, helps sustain meadow development and ultimately promotes sediment carbon sequestration across real seagrass landscapes.

Concluding remarks

The current accelerated pace of species extinction globally has led to substantial concerns and efforts to understand and determine the ecological, social, and economic consequences of biodiversity loss (Naeem et al. 2016; Hungate et al. 2017; Qiu et al. 2018). Of particular scientific and practical interest is the extent to which biodiversity loss undermines continued functioning of ecosystems and their long-term capacity to deliver ecosystem services at the landscape scales amenable to real-world management and conservation actions (Oliver et al. 2015). In this Topical Collection, we have strived to bring together a list of studies across systems and using diverse approaches to understand BES linkages, identify general patterns, and shed light on the role of landscape-scale abiotic and human factors and processes in mediating BES linkages. Although BES research is emerging and rapidly growing, this is still an active field of research that has a long way to go. Future research in particular is needed to unravel (1) different mechanisms underlying BES linkages in real landscapes; (2) BES linkages that consider their implications on supply, demand, and flow of ecosystem services; (3) the functional role of different aspects of biodiversity (e.g., functional diversity, trait diversity, genetic diversity, phylogenetic diversity) in sustaining ecosystem services across heterogeneous landscapes; (4) interactions between spatial and temporal scales and associated environmental heterogeneity and synchrony (or lack thereof) in mediating BES linkages; (5) when and how landscape structure (e.g., landscape composition, landscape configuration, and landscape connectivity) alters BES linkages, and thus the capacities of landscapes to provide multiple functions and services (i.e., multifunctional landscapes); and (6) BES linkages in aquatic systems, especially coastal and marine ecosystems, that have different social, environmental, and ecological conditions (e.g., connectivity) as compared to terrestrial landscapes. Progress in this research agenda will provide more scientific and practical information for safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem services at scales relevant for conservation. Such research can also be readily integrated into management actions and policy initiatives by improving predictions of the effects of biodiversity on multiple ecosystem services at landscape scales, helping design robust conservation strategies in a rapidly changing and uncertain future, and ultimately improving and maintaining landscape multifunctionality and sustainability.