The role of functional redundancy on stability mechanisms in multi-level ecosystem processes face to climatic extremes

The present proposal, SMILE, aims to answer core questions on the current climatic and biodiversity crisis. Together with Dr. Francesco de Bello, a prominent authority on functional ecology and biodiversity, at the CIDE-CSIC, Spain, the applicant, Dr. Felícia M. Fischer, seeks to understand how biodiversity responds to extreme climatic events and how this response affects multiple ecosystem functions. For so, SMILE will explore the role of key aspects of the biological communities in terms of functional traits on the resistance and resilience of natural processes and the provision of multiple ecosystem functions connected to various ecosystem services. Two approaches, one using large-scale datasets of permanent plots, and another, within an extensive biodiversity experiment in controlled conditions, will allow testing the effect of functional redundancy within biological communities (i.e. multiple species with similar ecological functions but different environmental preferences) over the ecological stability (insurance hypothesis). SMILE will rely on cutting edge quantitative methods for accessing and testing the role biodiversity to buffer extreme climatic events. It will also count on a transdisciplinary approach to evaluate multifunctionality, involving the fields of climatology, community ecology, functional ecology, soil biology and biochemistry, carbon and water cycles, among others, with promising applications to conservation. For so, SMILE will involve a large multidisciplinary and multinational collaboration network. Moreover, the project is well aligned with the priorities and themes promoted by the Europe 2020 strategies and the Horizon 2020 program, as it can have important role for restoration of degraded lands, and their maintenance. Communication and dissemination will be, thus, a key priority of the project. The execution of SMILE will be key to enhance the applicant`s career, improving her theoretical, methodological, and overall operational skills.