There is an alarming decline in biodiversity worldwide. In Europe alone, about 10 % of described species are threatened. For instance, according to the European Environment Agency, and only considering two taxonomic groups, the common bird and butterfly index has significantly decreased in the last decades in agricultural lands. Human activities are the main driver behind biodiversity loss. Human activities impact in several ways on natural ecosystems. One of the longest and more pervasive human-induced impacts occurring since the agricultural revolution is conversion of natural ecosystems in agricultural lands. With increasing population, there is an evident pressure on food production, not only from terrestrial but also from marine ecosystems. The increasing demand for food comes at the expense of the natural environment. Maximising yields at environmental cost is quite high especially in terms of natural resources deterioration.

Traditional/conventional food production systems come with deleterious impacts on the environment. Such agricultural practices have substantially contributed to soil, atmosphere and water pollution, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and climate change due to greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. In this context, the increasing awareness of nature conservation has triggered the adoption of ecological intensification measures, but its potential to halt the biodiversity loss remains still poorly known.

Other global change components jeopardise biodiversity levels too. Climate change and other interacting anthropogenic drivers are modifying all kinds of ecosystems and we should find new ways to manage these ecosystems, including agricultural ones, to increase their sustainability for themselves and for people's health.

Monitoring and performing observational, experimental, or modelling studies to quantify biodiversity loss and to understand mechanisms regulating biodiversity distribution, conservation and management are fundamental to understand ecosystem services conservation, regulation and erogation.

Within the EU GREEN alliance more than one hundred scientists study biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services maintenance and human-induced impacts on the natural ecosystem. These ecosystems must be studied and conserved to understand as much as we can about ecosystem functioning and their regulation of ecosystem services, but also to maintain the biggest treasure of evolution such as genetic diversity from microbiota to big mammals, from old forests to peatlands, from high mountains to plains and coastal habitats, from Arctic lakes to Mediterranean lagoons to deep ocean.

The main scope of this cluster is studying biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, assessing degradation trends and design scenarios or recovery to aid in decision making and maximise nature contribution to people along with the conservation of biodiversity.