Отчет по первому этапу российско-немецкого проекта по оценке экосистемных услуг России TEEB - Russia

The paper summarizes the principle of optimum diversity of biosystems, which
suggests that biodiversity is a parameter to be optimized. In fact, diversity is
considered as a major adaptation of biosystems to environmental conditions.
Biosystems with the optimal diversity have maximum efficiency and probability of
survival. Paper discusses the diversity of two hierarchical levels - population
(phenotypic diversity within a population) and coenotic (number of species in
community). It is shown that the optimal values of diversity are determined by the
amount of a resource in the environment, the degree of environmental stability and by
the evolutionary level of organisms. The adaptation of biosystems to environmental
conditions occurs through the optimization of diversity at the population and
community levels during their interaction. Optimal values of species diversity
increase in more stable and “rich” environments, while optimal values of
intrapopulation diversity decrease in more stable environments and is independent of
the intensity of resource flow. These opposite reactions allow us to make an
assumption of the different roles of intrapopulation diversity and species diversity in
a fluctuating environment: intrapopulation diversity is the basis of adapta-tion to
environmental instability, while species diversity enables a community to use
resources to the maximum and effectively.
The predictions of the principle of optimal diversity does not contradict the basic
array of empirical data, and in some cases they are confirmed. This allowes us to
accept the principle of optimal diversity as a working hypothesis and put forward on
this basis specific hypotheses about mechanisms of diversity optimisation in the
ecological, microevolutionary and evolutionary processes.
The final section of the paper discusses the findings from the principle of
optimal biodiversity for strategies for sustainable environmental management and
biodiversity conservation.