About

Bradley J. Cardinale is an ecologist specializing in the conservation and restoration of biodiversity in natural systems, as well as the ecological design of human-engineered systems that benefit from native species and biodiversity. He has a background in ecology with a focus on freshwater ecosystem management and ecological restoration, holding a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Maryland, an M.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife from Michigan State University, and a B.S. in Biology from Arizona State University. Dr. Cardinale has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers, received more than $38 million in grant funding, and has been ranked as one of the world's most highly cited researchers in the area of Environment / Ecology since 2014. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA). His career includes faculty positions at the University of California-Santa Barbara and the University of Michigan, where he formed and directed the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research. In 2021, he was appointed Head of Penn State’s Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, overseeing research, teaching, and extension activities related to the sustainable management of ecosystems.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Biology
• Geography
• Mathematics
• Environmental resource management
• Agroforestry

Selected publications

• Biodiversity conservation through land sparing or sharing: A review

  Conservation Science and Practice · 2026-05-12

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The expansion of agriculture to meet global food demands presents a major challenge for biodiversity conservation. Two strategies—land sparing and land sharing (LSLS)—have been proposed to balance agricultural growth with biodiversity conservation. Land sparing separates intensive agriculture from large natural areas, while land sharing integrates biodiversity within less intensively farmed landscapes. However, conclusions about their effectiveness vary widely depending on definitions, study types, spatial scales, habitat types, and taxa. This review examines how these factors shape conclusions about optimal land use configurations. Across 96 papers, we identified 7 definitions for land sharing and 5 for land sparing, many of which were qualitative, subjective, and likely to have different impacts on biodiversity. Study type significantly influenced conclusions (χ 2 = 12.75, p = .04), with empirical, modeling, and review studies often disagreeing. Studies using a single spatial scale more often recommended sparing (42%), whereas multi‐scale studies favored combining sparing and sharing (67%). Most LSLS research has focused on forest ecosystems and birds, leaving many taxa and habitats understudied. Early LSLS studies often reached different conclusions than those of non‐pioneer researchers. Overall, our findings reveal persistent uncertainty in LSLS outcomes due to variation in definitions, methods, and ecological focus.

  PublisherDOI

• Positive Feedback on Climate Warming by Stream Microbial Decomposers Indicated by a Global Space‐For‐Time Substitution Study

  Global Change Biology · 2025-04-01 · 2 citations

  article

  ABSTRACT Decomposition of plant litter is a key ecological process in streams, whose contribution to the global carbon cycle is large relative to their extent on Earth. We examined the mechanisms underlying the temperature sensitivity (TS) of instream decomposition and forecast effects of climate warming on this process. Comparing data from 41 globally distributed sites, we assessed the TS of microbial and total decomposition using litter of nine plant species combined in six mixtures. Microbial decomposition conformed to the metabolic theory of ecology and its TS was consistently higher than that of total decomposition, which was higher than found previously. Litter quality influenced the difference between microbial and total decomposition, with total decomposition of more recalcitrant litter being more sensitive to temperature. Our projections suggest that (i) warming will enhance the microbial contribution to decomposition, increasing CO 2 outgassing and intensifying the warming trend, especially in colder regions; and (ii) riparian species composition will have a major influence on this process.

  PublisherDOI

• Nature’s role in national security

  2025-10-31

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The ability of a nation to protect its citizens, institutions, and interests from domestic and foreign threats is one of the foundational responsibilities of any government. However, the ability of sovereign nations to ensure national security for their citizens and institutions has been increasingly challenged by various forms of anthropogenic global change. While the link between climate change and national security has already received considerable attention, biological changes in nature that generate ecological disruptions and increase national security risks have been comparatively overlooked. This is unfortunate given that ecological disruptions like habitat loss and degradation, biodiversity loss, invasive species, pest and disease outbreaks, overharvesting, and others can contribute to food and water scarcity, energy shortages, economic crises, disease outbreaks, property destruction on scales comparable to climate change. Here we draw explicit links between biological forms of global change that generate ecological disruptions and security risk. We focus on five key aspects of national security: food security, water scarcity, health security, protection from natural disasters, and environmental crime. For each aspect, we discuss how ecological disruptions impact social and political stress and use case studies to illustrate how such disruptions impact national security. Collectively, the suite of examples suggests that ecosystems and biological communities that underlie human well-being form a natural infrastructure that helps ensure national security. This natural infrastructure operates much like a nation’s physical infrastructure (e.g., communication networks, electrical grids, and transportation networks) to buffer against the worst impacts of natural resource shortages, energy shortages, economic crises, and public health emergencies. Given this, we suggest the role of nature and its natural infrastructure warrants greater attention in security planning.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Effects of Biodiversity Loss on Freshwater Ecosystem Functions Increase With the Number of Stressors

  Global Change Biology · 2025-11-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  A multitude of anthropogenic stressors drive biodiversity loss and alter ecosystem functioning. Freshwaters, which contribute disproportionally to global biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles, are particularly threatened. Although the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functions (BEF) is generally well-established, especially in terrestrial ecosystems, the role of multiple, co-occurring stressors in modulating the relationship remains unclear. We conducted a meta-analysis to address this knowledge gap by assessing the effect of multiple stressors on the relationship between taxon richness and four measures of ecosystem function. The relationship was generally positive, with the slope becoming steeper as the number of stressors increased, suggesting that exposure to multiple stressors exacerbates impacts of biodiversity loss on ecosystem function. Multiple stressor effects on both taxon richness and ecosystem functions were largely predictable from individual stressor effects, although antagonistic effects on ecosystem functions emerged in 14% of the considered cases. The type of stressor and ecosystem function, along with taxonomic group, exerted no influence on the BEF relationship, contrary to our expectations. Microbial production and biomass declined most strongly in response to stressors, despite notable variability. Overall, our findings imply that functional consequences of freshwater biodiversity loss are more severe under multifaceted environmental change than previously assumed.

  PublisherDOI

• Key questions for understanding drivers of biodiversity-ecosystem service relationships across spatial scales

  Landscape Ecology · 2024-02-14 · 31 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Context Biodiversity loss is predicted to have significant impacts on ecosystem services based on previous ecological work at small spatial and temporal scales. However, scaling up understanding of biodiversity-ecosystem service (BES) relationships to broader scales is difficult since ecosystem services emerge from complex interactions between ecosystems, people, and technology. Objectives In order to inform and direct future BES research, identify and categorise the ecological and social-ecological drivers operating at different spatial scales that could strengthen or weaken BES relationships. Methods We developed a conceptual framework to understand the potential drivers across spatial scales that could affect BES relationships and then categorized these drivers to synthesize the current state of knowledge. Results Our conceptual framework identifies ecological/supply-side and social-ecological/demand-side drivers, and cross-scale interactions that influence BES relationships at different scales. Different combinations of these drivers in different contexts will lead to a variety of strengths, shape, and directionality in BES relationships across spatial scales. Conclusions We put forward four predictions about the spatial scales that the effects of biodiversity, ecosystem service management, ecosystem co-production, and abiotic linkages or effects will be most evident on BES relationships and use these to propose future directions to best advance BES research across scales.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Long‐term changes in multi‐trophic diversity alter the functioning of river food webs

  Functional Ecology · 2024-05-21 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Increasing human pressures threaten fish diversity, with potentially severe but unknown consequences for the functioning of riverine food webs. Using a 17‐year dataset from multi‐trophic fish communities, we investigated the long‐term effects of human pressure on the diversity and food web functioning. Combining metabolic scaling and ecological network principles, we calculate the annual energy fluxes through trophic compartments (top‐carnivore, mesocarnivore, detritivore and omnivore). Energy fluxes link trophic compartments, and thus represents food web functions such as carnivory, omnivory, herbivory and detritivory. Species richness across all trophic compartments was positively associated with energy flux. However, species richness decreased over time, as did the energy flux at the whole‐network level, which was reduced by 75%. Human pressure negatively affected both species richness and energy flux. Moreover, the negative impacts of human pressure on energy flux have intensified over time. Our results illustrate how human pressure can reduce diversity and erode the energy flux through food webs, with negative implications for the ecosystem functioning. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Impacts of Fungal Disease on Algal Biofuel Systems: Using Life Cycle Assessment to Compare Control Strategies

  Environmental Science & Technology · 2023-02-03 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  While climate change has incentivized attention on sustainable fuel sources, algae has positioned itself as a both promising and problematic biofuel feedstock. Diseases such as fungal pathogens cause costly algal feedstock crashes, but the life cycle assessments (LCAs) used to analyze the viability of algal feedstocks for biofuel have yet to consider the impact of disease on life cycle metrics. Here, we incorporate a disease model into a well-documented LCA for algal biorefineries to compare two sustainability metrics, energy return on investment (EROI) and global warming potential (GWP). We begin by showing that failure to consider disease leads to overly optimistic LCA metric outputs. Then, we compare two leading control strategies of disease─chemical and biological. Our analyses show that biological engineering of a multispecies consortium of algae has a greater positive impact on LCA metrics than chemical control of the fungal pathogen using a fungicide. We expand how and when bi-cultures might advantageously exhibit the "dilution effect" whereby differentially susceptible species exhibit compensatory dynamics that stabilize feedstock production. Our results emphasize the impact of disease and suggest that multispecies consortia of algae can be biologically engineered to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the economic viability of biofuel.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Long-term changes in multi-trophic diversity alter the functioning of river food webs

  2023-09-12 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Increasing human pressures threaten fish diversity, with potentially severe but unknown consequences to the functioning of riverine food webs. Using a 17-years dataset from multi-trophic fish communities, we investigated the long-term effects of human pressure (represented by human footprint) on the species richness and energy flux across fish food webs, a measure of ecosystem functioning. Combining metabolic scaling theory and ecological network principles, we calculate the annual energy flux through varying trophic compartments (i.e., top-carnivore, mesocarnivore, detritivore, and omnivore). Species richness across all trophic compartments was positively associated with energy flux. However, species richness decreased over time, alongside with the energy flux at the whole-network level, which reduced by 75%. Human pressure negatively affected both species richness and energy flux, and the negative impacts of human pressure have intensified over time. These results illustrate how human pressure can reduce diversity and erode the energy flux through food webs, with long-term negative implications for the functioning of natural ecosystems

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The perceived ecological and human well‐being benefits of ecosystem restoration

  People and Nature · 2023-12-13 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Traditionally, ecosystem restoration has focussed on standard ecological indicators like water or habitat quality, species population abundance or vegetation cover to determine success. However, there is growing interest in how restoration might impact people and communities. For example, researchers have documented positive socio‐ecological links between restoration and human well‐being indicators like property value, natural hazard mitigation, recreation opportunity and happiness. Furthermore, public health benefits from restoration have been linked to public support for programmes. Drawing from this research, the United Nations declared 2021–2030 the ‘Decade of Ecosystem Restoration’ and set a goal to promote more socio‐ecological goals in ecosystem restoration. Nonetheless, there is still a lack of information on the extent to which restoration practitioners consider well‐being because many granting programmes only require ecological goals and monitoring. To explore how restoration practitioners design, implement and measure the success of their projects, we used the federally funded Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) as a case study. Since 2010, GLRI has awarded over $3.5 Billion to over 5300 projects across the midwestern United States, but it does not presently require human well‐being considerations. We performed an online survey targeting project managers with a sample of GLRI projects ( N = 1574). We received 437 responses and found that almost half set a human well‐being goal, and more than 70% of those who did believe they reached it. In comparison, 90% of project managers believed they met their ecological goals. These documented perceptions of positive impacts for both people and nature suggest that restoration may already transcend traditional indicators and monitoring for socio‐ecological metrics could capture many ‘unseen’ benefits. Therefore, we recommend that ecosystem restoration programmes adopt a socio‐ecological lens to document the full extent of their restoration outcomes. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Biodiversity and disease risk in an algal biofuel system: An experimental test in outdoor ponds using a before-after-control-impact (BACI) design

  PLoS ONE · 2022-04-28 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  For outdoor cultivation of algal feedstocks to become a commercially viable and sustainable option for biofuel production, algal cultivation must maintain high yields and temporal stability in environmentally variable outdoor ponds. One of the main challenges is mitigating disease outbreaks that leads to culture crashes. Drawing on predictions from the 'dilution effect' hypothesis, in which increased biodiversity is thought to reduce disease risk in a community, a teste of whether algal polycultures would reduce disease risk and improve feedstock production efficiencies compared to monocultures was performed. While the positive benefits of biodiversity on disease risk have been demonstrated in various systems, to the best of our knowledge this is the first test in an algal biofuel system. Here, the results a before-after-control-impact (BACI) experimental design to compare mean monoculture (control) and polyculture (impact) yield, stability, and productivity before and after fungal infection when grown in 400-L outdoor raceway ponds are presented. It has been found that polycultures did not experience a reduction in disease risk compared to monocultures or differ in production efficiencies throughout the course of the 43-day experiment. These results show that polyculture feedstocks can maintain similar levels of productivity, stability, and disease resistance to that of a monoculture. Determining whether these results are generalizable or represent one case study requires additional outdoor experiments using a larger variety of host and pathogen species.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collabrative Research: Does productivity drive diversity or vice versa? Empirical and theoretical investigations of the multivariate productivity-diversity hypothesis in streams

  NSF · $334k · 2011–2014

• Dimensions: Collaborative Research: Can Evolutionary History Predict How Changes in Biodiversity Impact the Productivity of Ecosystems?

  NSF · $780k · 2010–2016

• Effects of Algal Diversity on the Productivity of Streams: Does Diversity Play a Greater Role in Variable vs. Constant Environments?

  NSF · $333k · 2006–2010

• EFRI-PSBR: Biodiversity & Biofuels: Finding Win-Win Scenarios for Conservation and Energy Production in the Next Century

  NSF · $2.1M · 2013–2018

• Dissertation Research: Impacts of Biological Diversity on Sediment Transport Conditions in Streams

  NSF · $15k · 2011–2013

Frequent coauthors

• Casey M. Godwin

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  35 shared

• Phillip E. Savage

  Pennsylvania State University

  34 shared

• Diane S. Srivastava

  University of British Columbia

  30 shared

• Amy L. Downing

  Ohio Wesleyan University

  28 shared

• Anita Narwani

  Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology

  27 shared

• Martin Solan

  National Oceanography Centre

  27 shared

• Arturo A. Keller

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  27 shared

• Hunter S. Lenihan

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  26 shared

Labs

• Conservation Biology at Penn State UniversityPI

Education

• Ph.D., Ecology

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  1999

• M.S., Ecology

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  1995

• B.S., Ecology

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  1993

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sc…
• Fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA)