WWU biologist: Loss of plant biodiversity could affect ecosystems as much as global climate change, pollution

The scientists gathered at a workshop in California knew that shrinking biological diversity affects an ecosystem's plant growth, based on the many experiments that have shown just that.
"But how big are those effects, really?" said David Hooper, a biology professor at Western Washington University and one of the scientists at that workshop in the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara.