Biodiversity research is driven, on the one hand, by the desire to know more about the organisms with which we share our planet, but also by the need to understand how ecosystems function, so as to be able to use them and predict how they will react to human-induced disturbances. It is remarkable that we have no precise figures for biodiversity on Earth, and that our knowledge of how ecosystems function is insufficient to predict how they will react to environmental changes induced by pollution or climate change. Indeed, it is not only the type but also the abundance and diversity of organisms within a given community that determine the functions of the ecosystem in which they reside. Our experience of manipulating ecosystems, and our attempts to remedy the damage we have caused, clearly show that modifying natural ecosystems is a perilous business!
Scientists are now in a unique position to address the dynamics and complexity of living matter at multiple scales and in the context of a changing environment. This responds to a very strong societal demand for an understanding of processes and phenomena that are already affecting the future of mankind. But we need interdisciplinary research and knowledge sharing to tackle these societal and global issues. We need to aim for a pace of scientific discovery that exceeds that of catastrophes such as biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, epidemics and climate change.