Environmental resource management

Ecosystem

Ecosystem services

Evolutionary biology

Biology

Biodiversity

Ecosystem health

Ecosystem management

Function (biology)

Ecology

Environmental science

Total human ecosystem

Nature Ecology & Evolution

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in ecosystem multifunctionality, a concept that has developed in the largely separate fields of biodiversity–ecosystem function and land management research. Here we discuss the merit of the multifunctionality concept, the advances it has delivered, the challenges it faces and solutions to these challenges. This involves the redefinition of multifunctionality as a property that exists at two levels: ecosystem function multifunctionality and ecosystem service multifunctionality. The framework presented provides a road map for the development of multifunctionality measures that are robust, quantifiable and relevant to both fundamental ecological science and ecosystem management. The concept of ecosystem multifunctionality has emerged from two distinct research fields. In this Perspective, the authors reconcile these views by redefining multifunctionality at two levels that will be relevant for both fundamental and applied researchers.

Redefining ecosystem multifunctionality